ArticleHuman brain mapping2022
Olfactory bulb volume and cortical thickness evolve during sommelier training.
Article in Human brain mapping, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 8 papers.
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Who cites it
8 citing papers in PubMed.
- Sex differences modulate olfactory bulb volume-function relationships but not olfactory training-induced plasticity.Brain structure & function · 2026Article
- The plasticity of olfactory learning in culinary students and matched controls.Brain imaging and behavior · 2025Article
- Regional gray matter thickness correlations of the hearing and deaf feline brains.Neuroimage. Reports · 2025Article
- Inflammation and olfactory loss are associated with at least 139 medical conditions.Frontiers in molecular neuroscience · 2024Article
- Olfactory neurofeedback: current state and possibilities for further development.Frontiers in human neuroscience · 2024Article
- Altered Grey Matter-Brain Healthcare Quotient: Interventions of Olfactory Training and Learning of Neuroplasticity.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Article
- Overnight olfactory enrichment using an odorant diffuser improves memory and modifies the uncinate fasciculus in older adults.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2023Review
- Olfactory bulb volume and cortical thickness evolve during sommelier training.Human brain mapping · 2022Article
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Authors and funding
5 authors.
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Abstract
Brain plasticity is essential for experts to acquire the abilities they need. Sommeliers are olfaction experts who display differences in olfactory regions in the brain that correlate with greater olfactory abilities. While most studies on this topic are cross-sectional, we used a longitudinal design and invited 17 sommelier students at the start and end of their training then to compare them to 17 control students to study the effects of training-related brain plasticity. After a year and a half, 5 sommelier students and 4 control students dropped out, leading to 12 sommelier students versus 13 controls. We used magnetic resonance imaging to measure cortical thickness and olfactory bulb volume, as this structure plays a crucial role in olfactory processing. We used the Sniffin' Sticks test to evaluate olfactory performance. During training, olfactory bulb volume increased in sommelier students while there was no significant change in the control group. We also observed that thickness of right entorhinal cortex increased, and cortical thickness decreased in other cerebral regions. Our olfactory tests did not reveal any significant changes in sommelier students. In conclusion, this is the first longitudinal study to report an increase in olfactory bulb volume in olfaction experts in line with the notion of effects of ecological training-related brain plasticity. The mixed results about cortical thickness might be explained by a "overproduction-pruning" model of brain plasticity, according to which the effects of training-related plasticity are non-linear and simultaneously involve different processes.
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