What is it about?

Volatile organic compounds are widely used to manufacture various products in addition to research purposes. They play an important role in the air quality of outdoor and indoor with a pleasant or unpleasant odor. It is well known that the odor of chemicals with different structures can affect brain functions differently. Acetic acid, acetaldehyde, acetone, and acetonitrile are widely used laboratory chemicals with the same methyl group, but different functional groups. Hence, the present study was aimed to investigate whether the exposure of these four chemicals (10%) exhibits the same electroencephalographic (EEG) activity or different.

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Why is it important?

Although acetaldehyde, acetone, and acetonitrile odors affected almost similar EEG indices, they exhibited changes in different brain regions. The variations in the EEG activity of these chemicals may be due to the activation of different olfactory receptors, odor characteristics, and structural arrangements.

Perspectives

Writing this article was a great pleasure as it has co-authors with whom I have had long-standing collaborations.

Kandhasamy Sowndhararajan
Kongunadu Arts and Science College

Read the Original

This page is a summary of: Changes in the Electroencephalographic Activity in Response to Odors Produced by Organic Compounds, Journal of Psychophysiology, February 2019, Hogrefe Publishing Group,
DOI: 10.1027/0269-8803/a000234.
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