fMRI-Based Brain Responses to Olfactory Stimulation with Two Putatively Orexigenic Functional Food Ingredients at Two Different Concentrations in the Pig Model

Nicolas Coquery (1) , Sophie Menneson (1, 2) , Paul Meurice (1) , Regis Janvier (1) , Pierre Etienne (2) , Virginie Noirot (2) , David Val-Laillet (1)

1 NuMeCan - Nutrition, Métabolismes et Cancer
2 Laboratoires Phodé

Natural plant extracts are increasingly used as functional feed ingredients in animal husbandry and food ingredients in human alternative medicine to improve welfare and health. We investigated in 20 growing pigs via functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) the brain blood oxygen level–dependent (BOLD) responses to olfactory stimulation with two sensory functional feed ingredients, A and B, at two different concentrations. Functional ingredient A contained extracts from Citrus sinensis (60% to 80%), and ingredient B contained a mixture of extracts Oreganum vulgarae (40% to 55%) and Cymbopogon flexuosus (20% to 25%). Increased concentration of ingredients induced a higher activation in reward and cognitive areas compared to lower concentrations. Moreover, considering both ingredients at the highest concentration, the ingredient A elicited higher brain responses in brain areas involved in hedonism/pleasantness compared to ingredient B, and more specifically in the caudate nucleus and orbitofrontal cortex. Our findings shed new light in the scope of emotion regulation through olfactory modulation via sensory functional ingredients, which opens the way to further preclinical studies in animal models and translational research in the context of nutrition, welfare, and health.

Keywords: pig; olfaction; hedonism; functional food ingredients; fMRI; brain

Domains: Life Sciences [q-bio]; Life Sciences [q-bio]; Food and Nutrition

Nicolas Coquery, Sophie Menneson, Paul Meurice, Regis Janvier, Pierre Etienne, et al.. fMRI-Based Brain Responses to Olfactory Stimulation with Two Putatively Orexigenic Functional Food Ingredients at Two Different Concentrations in the Pig Model. Journal of Food Science, 2019, 84 (9), pp.2666-2673. ⟨10.1111/1750-3841.14772⟩. ⟨hal-02281404⟩