The Neural Basis of Olfactory Language

Humans are notoriously poor at naming smells, even for highly familiar odors and aromas. This phenomenon of olfactory “agnosia” has been well documented in the psychological literature for many decades, but the underlying neurobiological mechanisms remain poorly understood. My presentation will highlight recent work from our lab in both healthy subjects and in patients with primary progressive aphasia to demonstrate the important role of the anterior temporal lobe and orbitofrontal cortex in bridging odor percepts with lexical-semantic representations in the human brain.