| Summary: | A study examined whether the human orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) is a significant locus of olfactory conscious experience. A combination of functional magnetic resonance imaging, peripheral autonomic recordings, and olfactory psychophysics was used to analyze a case of complete anosmia in a patient with circumscribed traumatic brain injury to the right OFC. Findings revealed that the patient exhibited robust “blind smell,” as indexed by reliable odor-revoked neural activity in the left OFC and normal autonomic responses to odor hedonics during presentation of stimuli to the left nostril, despite a complete absence of conscious olfaction. The findings underscored the critical role of the right OFC in subserving human olfactory consciousness.
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