<p>Olfaction plays a crucial role in human perception, yet individuals with isolated congenital anosmia (ICA) navigate the world without ever experiencing smells. I will present findings from my research investigating how ICA influences behavior, physiology, and social interaction, with a particular focus on responses to fear-related chemosignals. First, I will describe distinct respiratory patterns observed in anosmics, both in general and in response to specific social and environmental contexts. While anosmics exhibited reduced sniff modulation in response to social cues, they adapted their breathing patterns similarly to normosmics during environmental transitions, suggesting compensatory mechanisms independent of olfaction. Next, I will discuss behavioral and physiological responses to fear sweat, demonstrating that normosmics exhibit heightened emotional engagement, whereas anosmics show reversed or minimal responses. These findings emphasize the role of olfactory input in emotional contagion and align with research on sensory processing differences in other populations. Finally, I will present functional brain imaging data revealing distinct neural activation patterns in anosmics in response to fear-related cues. While anosmics lack olfactory perception, they recruit alternative neural pathways, with lateralized brain activity suggesting adaptive mechanisms for processing social and emotional information. Together, these findings provide novel insights into the interplay between olfaction, social behavior, and neural adaptation. They highlight how anosmics adjust to sensory deficits and raise important questions about the flexibility of human sensory processing.</p>
