Olfactory navigation is universal across the animal kingdom. Humans, however, have rarely been considered in this context. Here, we combined olfactometry techniques, virtual reality (VR) software, and neuroimaging methods to investigate whether humans can navigate an olfactory landscape by learning the spatial relationships among discrete odor cues and integrating this knowledge into a spatial map. Our data show that over time, participants improved their performance on the odor navigation task by taking more direct paths toward targets and completing more trials within a given time period. This suggests that humans can successfully navigate a complex odorous environment, reinforcing the notion of human olfactory navigation. fMRI data collected during the olfactory navigation task revealed the emergence of grid-like responses in entorhinal and piriform cortices that were attuned to the same grid orientation. This result implies the existence of a specialized olfactory grid network tasked with guiding spatial navigation based on odor landmarks.

中文翻译：

嗅觉导航在整个动物王国中都很普遍。然而，人类很少在这种情况下被考虑。在这里，我们结合了嗅觉测量技术、虚拟现实（VR）软件和神经成像方法，研究人类是否可以通过学习离散气味线索之间的空间关系并将这些知识整合到空间地图中来导航嗅觉景观。我们的数据显示，随着时间的推移，参与者通过采取更直接的路径到达目标并在给定时间段内完成更多试验，提高了他们在气味导航任务中的表现。这表明人类可以成功地在复杂的有气味的环境中导航，强化了人类嗅觉导航的概念。在嗅觉导航任务期间收集的功能磁共振成像数据显示，内嗅皮质和梨状皮质中出现了网格状反应，这些反应与相同的网格方向相协调。这一结果意味着存在一种专门的嗅觉网格网络，其任务是根据气味地标指导空间导航。