Emilia Iannilli

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Verified

Emilia verified their affiliation via an institutional email.

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• Ph.D.
• Research Scientist at University of Graz

A study on D2O solutions of trehalose, maltose, and sucrose have been performed by using quasi-elastic light-scattering (QELS) and 1H and 2H pulse-gradient-spin−echo NMR (PGSE-NMR). The self-diffusion coefficient of disaccharide (D) and the apparent diffusion coefficient Dapp have been obtained as a function of disaccharide weight fraction c and te...

Gustatory event related potentials (gERP) were first established by Funakoshi und Kawamura in 1971. In 1985 Kobal developed a device able to elicit gERPs which was in modified versions also applied by other groups (Hummel et al., 2010. Mizoguchi et al. 2002). Aim of the present study was to use psychophysics and gERPs to investigate age-related di...

Purpose: The identification of a brain tumor imaged with PET or SPECT is usually performed with visual inspection of an expert medical clinician. However an automated diagnostic of such images hasn't been established or applied. In the present study we explored the possibility of establishing an automated statistical analysis for the diagnosis of...

Excessive dietary sodium intake is a major risk factor for hypertension, prompting interest in potassium chloride (KCl) as a sodium chloride (NaCl) alternative. While KCl preserves saltiness, its neural processing compared to NaCl remains underexplored. This study investigates the neural correlates of taste perception for NaCl, KCl, and their mixtu...

The umami taste is well validated in Asian culture but remains less recognized and accepted in European cultures despite its presence in natural local products. This study explored the sensory and emotional perceptions of umami in 233 Austrian participants who had lived in Austria for most of their lives. Using blind tasting, participants evaluated...

Excessive dietary sodium intake is a major risk factor for hypertension, prompting interest in potassium chloride (KCl) as a sodium chloride (NaCl) alternative. While KCl preserves saltiness, its neural processing compared to NaCl remains underexplored. This study investigates the neural correlates of taste perception for NaCl, KCl, and their mixtu...

This study aimed to investigate the sensory and emotional contents of the umami taste perception in a group of subjects from Austria, using a novel approach that expanded on previous findings from European samples. A total of 233 Austrian participants, who had lived in Austria for most of their lives, were recruited for this study. The participants...

Anatomically, the oral cavity is responsible for the reception of food stimuli. From there, a cross-modal interaction of somato- and chemosensory systems is required to induce the final flavor perception at the central nervous system (CNS) level. Important is also, however, the emotional component of flavor. In food science there has been increasin...

In migraine, the trigeminal nerve is intimately involved in the pathophysiology of the disease. We hypothesized that alterations in the sensory trigeminal activation in migraine would be reflected by EEG-derived event-related potentials (ERP). We aimed to investigate differences in the temporal and spatial processing of trigeminal stimuli between i...

In migraine, the trigeminal nerve is intimately involved in the pathophysiology of the disease. We hypothesized that alterations in the sensory trigeminal activation in migraine would be reflected by EEG-derived event-related potentials (ERP). We aimed to investigate differences in the temporal and spatial processing of trigeminal stimuli between i...

New findings: What is the central question of this study? Does peripheral non-invasive focused ultrasound targeted to the celiac plexus improve inflammatory bowel disease? What is the main finding and its importance? Peripheral non-invasive focused ultrasound targeted to the celiac plexus in a rat model of ulcerative colitis improved stool consist...

Background: Mammalian olfaction begins with transduction in olfactory receptors, continues with extensive processing in the olfactory bulb, and culminates in cortical representation. Most rodent studies on the functional neuroanatomy of olfaction have concentrated on the olfactory bulb, yet whether this structure is tuned only to basic chemical fe...

The data presented here includes verbal descriptors used by Finnish, German and Italian subjects to express the quality of an umami taste solution offered in a blind fashion. The dataset refers to the research article "A cross-cultural survey of Umami Familiarity in European Countries" [1]. Data shows that a total of 106 different classes of words,...

Maturational processes in the developing brain are disrupted by exposure to environmental toxicants, setting the stage for deviant developmental trajectories. Manganese (Mn) is an essential nutrient that is neurotoxic at high levels of exposure, particularly affecting the basal ganglia and prefrontal cortex. Both the intensity and timing of exposur...

Introduction: A number of patients with a diminished sense of smell also can suffer from parosmia. These patients with such a qualitative smell disorder are often more severely affected than patients exhibiting only a quantitative smell disorder. Qualitative smell disorders have heretofore been poorly investigated. The focus of the present study w...

Previous studies on olfactory function in patients with bipolar disorder (BD) are limited and contradictory. The current study aimed to comprehensively analyze the olfactory function of patients with euthymic BD using psychophysical, electrophysiological and neuroimaging techniques. Twenty-one patients with BD in remission and 20 healthy controls w...

Cross-modal sensory integration plays a key role in food flavor perception and acceptance during consumption. The current study investigated the effect of a butter odor, delivered at various stages of the oral processing cycle, on modulating the sensory properties of cheese. Twenty healthy volunteers (aged between 25 and 29 years, 12 women) were me...

The focus of this review is to interpret recent advances in human gustatory pathways with respect to the laterality of gustatory responses. Psychophysical, neuroimaging, and clinical anatomical studies published in peer reviewed scientific journals were examined. From the anatomical and neuroimaging studies a total of six models are outlined and di...

Early diagnosis and timely treatment of Parkinson's disease are essential factors to provide these patients with a longer period of a better quality of life. Olfactory loss is among the first non-motor symptoms of the disease; however, in light of the many causes of smell loss, it is a very unspecific biomarker and should only be used as part of a...

Studies on age‐related gustatory function report a reduction of the taste function, but the degeneration of the peripheral papillae alone cannot explain this reduction. In the present study, we apply psychophysics and gustatory event–related potentials (gERPs) to explore age‐related differences in the processing of gustatory information as indicate...

A critical issue in the neuroscience of olfaction is to understand how the human brain represents smells and particularly their perceptual features. To achieve this aim, one should be able to probe functionality from olfactory epithelium to olfactory bulb and more central structures (i.e., piriform cortex, etc.). However, in contrast to the accessi...

Long-term exposure to environmental manganese (Mn) affects not only attention and neuromotor functions but also olfactory functions of a pre-adolescent local population who have spent their whole life span in contaminated areas. In order to investigate the effect of such exposure at the level of the central nervous system we set up a pilot fMRI exp...

The currently presented large dataset (n = 1,422) consists of results that have been assembled over the last 8 years at science fairs using the 16-item odor identification part of the "Sniffin' Sticks". In this context, the focus was on olfactory function in children; in addition before testing, we asked participants to rate their olfactory abiliti...

In order to elicit gustatory event related potentials (gERPs) a special taste delivery system is needed which allows precise control of stimulus onset and duration. Aim of this investigation was to describe the characteristics, namely onset rise-time step and onset delay time of a recently new taste delivery system based on stepper-motor, computer-...

Tastes and odors influence the perception of a meal. Especially food aromas can act as potent signals to modulate our eating behavior with strong dependency on the reward produced by food. In this investigation we aimed to study the electrophysiological response to food and non-food related odors in healthy volunteers. Analyses revealed specific sc...

The impairment of the olfactory system, even if is not directly related to pain or ailment, can severely affect the life of people for several aspects: eating behavior, awareness of environmental risks and also limitation or improvement of social communication (Ottaviano et al., 2013; Lundström et al. 2013) . Interestingly more recent researches ha...

In humans the identification of the primary gustatory cortex (PGC) is still under debate. Neuroimaging studies indicate Insula and overlying opercula as the best candidates but the exact position of the PGT within this region is not entirely clear. Moreover, inconsistencies appear when comparing results from studies using functional magnetic resona...

Although the brain structures involved in integrating odorant and trigeminal stimuli are well-documented, there is still a need to clarify (1) how emotional response is represented in the human brain during cross-modal interaction between odors and trigeminal stimuli, and (2) whether the degree of congruency between the two types of stimuli influen...

The present study aimed to investigate whether side differences in olfactory bulb (OB) volume correlate to respective differences in olfactory function. In a total of 164 healthy volunteers volumetric measures of the OBs were performed plus lateralized measurements of odor thresholds and odor discrimination. Side differences were defined as 10% dif...

Excessive intake of dietary salt (sodium chloride) may increase the risk of chronic diseases. Accordingly, various strategies to reduce salt intake have been conducted. This study aimed to investigate whether a salty-congruent odor can enhance saltiness on the basis of psychophysical (Experiment 1) and neuroanatomical levels (Experiment 2). In Expe...

The study aimed to investigate the volume of the olfactory bulb in smokers. Specifically, we wanted to see whether environmental influences may exert a negative influence on OB structure. Twenty-one smokers and 59 non-smokers, matched for age and sex, underwent olfactory testing by means of the Sniffin' Sticks testing device (measurement of odor th...

How the pleasantness of chemosensory stimuli such as odorants or intranasal trigeminal compounds is processed in the human brain has been the focus of considerable recent interest. Yet, so far, only the unimodal form of this hedonic processing has been explored, and not its bimodal form during crossmodal integration of olfactory and trigeminal stim...

Because central nervous processing of odorous stimuli in different stages of adolescence has rarely been studied, in this preliminary fMRI investigation, 20 subjects were grouped according to age (children 9–12 years old and young adults 17–20 years old) to build two equally sized samples. Patterns of cerebral activation were compared between both...

So-called bimodal odorants are able to stimulate the intranasal trigeminal system at relatively low concentrations. Using them as stimuli, the current study focused on the interaction between the olfactory and trigeminal systems at a cerebral level. In the experiment, menthol was used at two concentrations, low and high, and these were delivered to...

Developed in the 1990 s, the "Sniffin 'Sticks" test for the assessment of olfactory threshold, odor identification and discrimination has become a widely used tool both in clinical and research settings. Originally pencil-and-paper documented, it may now be applied using a computer program. The "Filemaker" based software "OLAF" guides the examiner...

In this study, we report gustatory event-related potentials in response to stimulation with monosodium glutamate (MSG) and salt (NaCl). We investigated differences in event-related potential related to stimulus quality, stimulus concentration, cortical topography, and participants' sex. Our results showed that amplitudes P1N1 and N1P2 were signific...

The aim of this study was investigating how women with a history of childhood maltreatment (CM) process non-threatening and non-trauma related olfactory stimuli. The focus on olfactory perception is based on the overlap of brain areas often proposed to be affected in CM patients and the projection areas of the olfactory system, including the amygda...

Although numerous fMRI studies have been performed on the processing of olfactory information, the intranasal trigeminal system so far has not received much attention. In a pilot study stimulants were presented within a constantly flowing airstream birhinally to activate the olfactory (phenylethyl alcohol, H(2)S) or the trigeminal (CO(2)) nerves. B...

Gustatory testing for clinicians. By contrast with the evaluation of olfactory function, which has been standardised for almost two decades, the clinical assessment of gustatory function with psychophysical and objective testing is still in its infancy. This overview will attempt to summarise the knowledge that is important for clinicians in the aw...

Tactile, proprioceptive, and nociceptive information, including also chemosensory functions are expressed in the trigeminal nerve sensory response. To study differences in the processing of different stimulus qualities, we performed a study based on functional magnetic resonance imaging. The first trigeminal branch (ophthalmic nerve) was activated...

Nasal chemical sensations are mediated principally by the olfactory and the trigeminal systems. Over the last few years brain structures involved in processing of trigeminal stimuli have been more and more documented. However, the exact role of individual regions in stimulus intensity processing is unclear. The present study set out to examine the...

The intranasal trigeminal system is involved in the perception of odors. To investigate the cerebral processing of sensory information from the trigeminal nerve in detail we studied subjects with and without olfactory function using functional magnetic resonance imaging. A normosmic group (n=12) was compared with a group of anosmic subjects (n=11)....

A single subject block design olfactory fMRI experiment will be recorded with a 1.5 T Scanner. Then the collected time series of fMRI data will be analysed with SPM toolbox following the next steps.: 1st Spatial pre-processing, 2nd Modelling, 3rd Statistical inference. The Spatial pre-processing include a) the Image time-series realignment with sp...