State-dependence of olfactory perception as a function of taste cortical inactivation

As anyone who has suffered through a head cold knows, food eaten when the olfactory system is impaired tastes “wrong”–an experience that leads many to conclude that taste stimuli are processed normally only when the olfactory system is unimpaired. Evidence that taste system function influences olfactory perception, meanwhile, has been vanishingly rare. Here, we demonstrate just such an influence, showing that if taste cortex is inactivated when an odor is first presented, later presentations are properly appreciated only if taste cortex is again inactivated.