Lifelong olfactory deprivation-dependent cortical reorganization restricted to orbitofrontal cortex

Abstract

Prolonged sensory deprivation has repeatedly been linked to cortical reorganization. We recently demonstrated that individuals with congenital anosmia (CA, complete olfactory deprivation since birth) have seemingly normal morphology in piriform (olfactory) cortex despite profound morphological deviations in the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC), a finding contradictory to both the known effects of blindness on visual cortex and to the sparse literature on brain morphology in anosmia. To establish whether these unexpected findings reflect the true brain morphology in CA, we first performed a direct replication of our previous study. Individuals with CA (n=30) were compared to age and sex matched controls (n=30) using voxel- and surface-based morphometry. The replication results were near identical to the original study: bilateral clusters of group differences in the OFC, including CA atrophy around the olfactory sulci and volume increases in the medial orbital gyri. Importantly, no group differences in piriform cortex were detected. Subsequently, to assess any subtle patterns of group differences not detectable by our mass-univariate analysis, we explored the data from a multivariate perspective. Combining the newly collected data with data from the replicated study (CA=49, Control=49) we performed support vector machine classification based on gray matter volume. In line with the mass-univariate analyses, the multivariate analysis could accurately differentiate between the groups in bilateral OFC (75-96% accuracy), whereas the classification accuracy in piriform cortex was at chance level. Our results suggest that despite lifelong olfactory deprivation, piriform (olfactory) cortex is morphologically unaltered and the morphological deviations in CA are confined to the OFC.