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Image: Ship of Fools, a reference to Michel Foucault's Madness and Civilization
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The following article/abstract is quoted here as an introduction to the
practice of using olfaction to better understand mental health:
Grete
Kjelvik , Hallvard R. Evensmoen , Veronika Brezova , Asta K. Håberg, Journal of
Neurophysiology. Published 15 July 2012. Vol. 108, No. 2, 645-657 DOI:
10.1152/jn.01036.2010
Odor identification (OI) tests are increasingly used clinically as
biomarkers for Alzheimer's disease and schizophrenia.
ODOR IDENTIFICATION (OI) tests examine an individual's ability to
correctly name an odor. In the clinic OI tests have been shown to have high
sensitivity and specificity for predicting Alzheimer's disease (AD) at an early
stage. This OI deficit is considered a central phenomenon as olfactory
threshold, detection, and discrimination abilities are preserved (Arnold et al.
1998; Morgan et al. 1995; Serby et al. 1991; Wilson et al. 2007, 2009). Since
AD pathology is first observed in entorhinal cortex and subsequently in the
hippocampus (Braak and Braak 1992), OI impairments may arise from medial
temporal lobe (MTL) pathology. Indeed, the early and specific OI deficit in AD
correlates with the number of tangles in entorhinal cortex and the hippocampus
(Wilson et al. 2007), and left hippocampal atrophy (Murphy et al. 2003).
Structural changes in the entorhinal cortex and hippocampus are also present in
patients with schizophrenia (Baiano et al. 2008; Bogerts et al. 1985; Ebdrup et
al. 2010; Schultz et al. 2009; Witthaus et al. 2009), another group of patients
with a specific OI deficit (Atanasova et al. 2008; Moberg et al. 1997, 2006;
Rupp 2010). The utility of OI tests as a clinical tool depends on a better
understanding of the neuronal processes underlying OI, and how OI differs from
passive smelling (PS).
Notes:
This point about smelling mental illness is fantastically queried by
the odor author Annick Le Guérer in Scent
the Mysterious and Essential Powers of Smell (1992), where she plays with
the possibility of the “odor of sanctum” reported to emanate from certain
saintly corpses as a result of extensive abnormal mental states which lower, or
encumber the metabolic rate, leading to incomplete combustion of aromatic
materials in the body. She reciprocates by suggesting such lower metabolism as
a result of sustained meditation. Regardless, it is a general understanding
that psychosis brings with it an identifiable smell.
