Overlapping Circuitry for Olfaction, Face Processing, and Respiratory Control In the Human Amygdala

Noto, Torben

doi:https://doi.org/10.21985/n2-0nyz-6p41

Work

Overlapping Circuitry for Olfaction, Face Processing, and Respiratory Control In the Human Amygdala

Public

Download PDF

Download All Files (.zip)

My research at northwestern with Dr. Christina Zelano focused on the human amygdala subnucleithat receive monosynaptic input from the olfactory bulb. Surprisingly little is known about these brain regions, including their potential roles in olfactory and nonolfactory processing. During my PhD, I completed three projects aimed at furthering our understanding of the olfactory sub-nuclei of the human amygdala. Based on the anatomical connections between the amygdala and respiratory nuclei in the brainstem and previous work showing that electrical stimulation of these amygdala sub-nuclei disrupts breathing, I hypothesized that these areas play a key role in generating rapid respiratory modulations in response to olfactory (and visual) stimuli. In my first project, I laid the necessary groundwork for accurate analysis of human respiratory recordings (Noto et al. 2018). This was instrumental in investigating a role for the amygdala in respiratory control, as no toolbox existed for the required complex analyses. In my second project, I established that the human olfactory amygdala subnuclei exhibit distinct whole-brain functional networks, including brainstem regions that are involved in respiratory control, and can be distinguished from other amygdala subregions that do not receive monosynaptic input from the olfactory bulb (Noto et al. 2020). In my third project, grounded in prior literature showing robust activation of human olfactory amygdala subnuclei in response to faces, I showed that viewing faces rapidly disrupts breathing within 120ms, suggesting a subcortical circuit, which we hypothesize includes olfactory amygdala subregions. Much work remains to be done in elucidating these processes but I am eager to see how others will build off of this research and lead to new understandings of human olfaction, breathing, and social processing.

Creator