在人类的各种感觉通道中,嗅觉尤其和情绪有着千丝万缕的联系。两者在种系发生进程中存在一定的亲缘关系,在解剖结构上也高度重叠。气味天然带有情绪效价,不管是在意识上还是意识下层面,非社会性和社会性嗅觉信息都能对情绪产生影响,反之情绪也能对嗅知觉产生作用。已有的神经影像研究显示嗅觉和情绪系统加工均涉及杏仁核、海马、脑岛以及眶额皮层等区域。与此同时,非社会性和社会性嗅觉信息的编码和它们对情绪系统的作用方式也不尽相同。
Out of all senses, olfaction is particularly linked with human emotion. The kinship is rooted in the evolutionary process, which possibly shaped the highly overlapped anatomical compositions between the two systems. Anecdotal descriptions aside, recent empirical studies have examined the interplays between olfaction and emotion either with or without subjective awareness, as well as the underlying mechanisms. These efforts have outlined the behavioral affinity between olfaction and emotion as well as their shared neural encoding scheme involving structures like the amygdala, hippocampus, insular and orbitofrontal cortex. The findings also highlight the distinct roles of non-social odorants and social chemosignals in modulating emotional processes.