Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-5g6vh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-26T04:02:38.474Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Olfaction and Psychiatry

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

P. J. Harrison*
Affiliation:
Department of Anatomy, and Honorary Registrar, Department of Psychiatry, St Mary's Hospital Medical School
R. C. A. Pearson
Affiliation:
St Mary's Hospital Medical School, currently Professor of Neuroscience, University of Sheffield
*
Department of Anatomy, St Mary's Hospital Medical School, Norfolk Place, London W2 1PG

Abstract

Recent clinical studies have identified significant olfactory deficits in several neuropsychiatric disorders, notably Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease. These have correlated with neurochemical and neuropathological studies of the olfactory system. The presence of a specific sensory deficit may be related to the localisation of pathology within the brain. There is a need for incorporation of olfactory testing into routine clinical examination.

Type
Papers
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1989 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Amsterdam, J. D., Settle, R. G., Doty, R. L., et al (1987) Taste and smell perception in depression. Biological Psychiatry, 22, 14811485.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ansari, K. A. & Johnson, A. (1975) Olfactory function in patients with Parkinson's disease. Journal of Chronic Diseases, 28, 493497.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Averback, P. (1983) Two new lesions in Alzheimer's disease. Lancet, ii, 12031204.Google Scholar
Balin, B. R., Broadwell, R. D., Salcman, M., et al (1986) Avenues for entry of peripherally administered protein to the central nervous system in mouse, rat and squirrel monkey. Journal of Comparative Neurology, 251, 260280.Google Scholar
Benjamin, R. M. & Akert, K. (1959) Cortical and thalamic areas involved in taste discrimination in the albino rat. Journal of Comparative Neurology, 111, 231259.Google Scholar
Bhatnagar, K. P., Kennedy, R. C., Baron, G., et al (1987) Number of mitral cells and the bulb volume in the aging human olfactory bulb: a quantitative morphological study. Anatomical Record, 218, 7387.Google Scholar
Bouvet, J. F., Deialeu, J. C. & Holley, A. (1987) Does the trigeminal nerve control the activity of the olfactory receptor cells? Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 510, 187189.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bradley, E. A. (1984) Olfactory acuity to a pheromonal substance and psychotic illness. Biological Psychiatry, 19, 899905.Google Scholar
Brodal, A. (1981) Neurological Anatomy in Relation to Clinical Medicine (3rd edn), chapter 10. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Brooksband, B. W. L. & Pryse-Phillips, W. (1964) Urinary 16-androsten-3-ol, 17 oxosteroids and mental illness. British Medical Journal, i, 16021606.Google Scholar
von Buskirk, R. L. & Erickson, R. P. (1977) Odorant responses in taste neurons of the rat NTS. Brain research, 135, 287303.Google Scholar
Cain, W. S. & Murphy, C. L. (1980) Interaction between chemoreceptive modalities of odour and irritation. Nature, 284, 255257.Google Scholar
Cain, W. S. & Murphy, C. L. (1987) Influence of aging on recognition memory for odours and graphic stimuli. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 510, 212215.Google Scholar
Cavada, C. (1984) Transcortical sensory pathways to the prefrontal cortex with special attention to the olfactory and visual modalities. In Cortical Integration, IBRO Monograph 11 (eds Reinoso-Suarez, M. & Ajmone-Marsan, C.), pp. 317328. New York: Raven.Google Scholar
Chauhan, J., Hawrysl, Z. J., Gee, M., et al (1987) Age-related olfactory and taste changes and interrelationships between taste and nutrition. Journal of the American Dietetic Association, 87, 15431550.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Doty, R. L., Shaman, P., Applebaum, S. T., et al (1984) Smell identification ability: changes with age. Science, 226, 14411443.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Doty, R. L., Brugger, W. E., Jurs, P. C., et al (1987a) Intranasal trigeminal stimulation from odorous variables: psychometric responses from anosmic and normal humans. Physiology and Behaviour, 20, 171185.Google Scholar
Doty, R. L., Reyes, P. F. & Gregor, T. (1987b) Presence of both odor identification and detection deficits in Alzheimer's disease. Brain Research Bulletin, 18, 597600.Google Scholar
Doty, R. L., Deems, D. A. & Stellar, S. (1988) Olfactory dysfunction in parkinsonism: a general deficit unrelated to neurologic signs, disease stage, or disease duration. Neurology, 38, 12371244.Google Scholar
Eichenbaum, H., Mortar, T. H., Potter, H., et al (1983a) Selective olfactory deficits in case HM. Brain, 106, 459472.Google Scholar
Eichenbaum, H., Shedlack, K. J. & Eckmann, K. W. (1983b) Thalamocortical mechanisms in odor-guided behaviour – 1. Effects of lesions of the mediodorsal thalamic nucleus and frontal cortex on olfactory discrimination in the rat. Brain, Behaviour and Evolution, 7, 255275.Google Scholar
Elsberg, C. A., Brewer, E. D. & Levy, I. (1935) The sense of smell – IV. Concerning conditions which may temporarily alter normal olfactory acuity. Bulletin of the Neurological Institute of New York, 4, 3134.Google Scholar
Enns, M. P. & Hornung, D. E. (1988) Comparisons of the estimates of smell, taste and overall intensity in young and elderly people. Chemical Senses, 13, 131139.Google Scholar
Esiri, M. M. & Wilcock, G. M. (1984) The olfactory bulbs in Alzheimer's disease. Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry, 47, 5660.Google Scholar
Fallon, J. H. & Moore, R. Y. (1978) Catecholamine innervation of the forebrain – III. Olfactory bulbs, anterior olfactory nucleus, olfactory tubercle and pyriform cortex. Journal of Comparative Neurology, 180, 533544.Google Scholar
Freed, D. M. & Kandel, E. (1988) Long-term occupational exposure and the diagnosis of dementia. Neurotoxicology, 9, 391400.Google Scholar
Gottfries, I. & Roos, B. E. (1969) Homovanillic acid and 5-hydroxyindoleacetic acid in the CSF of patients with senile dementia, presenile dementia and Parkinsonism. Journal of Neurochemistry, 16, 13411345.Google Scholar
Halasz, N. & Shepherd, G. M. (1983) Neurochemistry of the vertebrate olfactory bulb. Neuroscience, 10, 579619.Google Scholar
Hardy, J. A., Mann, D. M. A., Wester, P., et al (1986) An integrative hypothesis concerning the pathogenesis and progression of Alzheimer's disease. Neurobiology of Aging, 7, 489502.Google Scholar
Harrison, P. J. (1986) The pathogenesis of Alzheimer's disease: beyond the cholinergic hypothesis. Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, 79, 347351.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Herzog, A. G. & Kemper, T. L. (1980) Amygdaloid changes in aging and dementia. Archives of Neurology, 37, 625629.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hurwitz, L., Kopala, L., Clark, C., et al (1988) Olfactory deficits in schizophrenia. Biological Psychiatry, 23, 123128.Google Scholar
Javoy-Ajid, F. & Ajid, Y. (1980) Is the mesocortical dopaminergic system involved in Parkinson's disease? Neurology, 30, 13261330.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jones, B. P., Moskowitz, H. R. & Butters, N. (1975a) Olfactory discrimination in alcoholic Korsakoff's patients. Neuropsychologica, 13, 173179.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jones, B. P., Moskowitz, H. R. & Butters, N. et al (1975b) Psychophysical scaling of olfactory, visual and auditory stimuli by alcoholic Korsakoff's patients. Neuropsychologica, 13, 387393.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jones, B. P., Jones, E.G., Burton, G., Saper, C. B., et al (1976) Midbrain, diencephalic and cortical relationships of the basal nucleus of Meynert and associated structures in primates. Journal of Comparative Neurology, 167, 385420.Google Scholar
Joyner, R. (1964) Effects of cigarette smoking on olfactory acuity. Archives of Otolaryngology, 80, 576579.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kievit, J. & Kuypers, H. G. J. (1977) Organisation of the thalamocortical connections to the frontal lobe in the rhesus monkey. Experimental Brain Research, 29, 299322.Google Scholar
Knupfer, L. & Spiegel, R. (1986) Differences in olfactory test performance between normal aged, Alzheimer and vascular type dementia individuals. International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, 1, 314.Google Scholar
Koss, E., Weiffenbach, J. M., Haxby, J. V., et al (1988) Olfactory detection and identification performance are dissociated in early Alzheimer's disease. Neurology, 38, 12281232.Google Scholar
Krettek, J. E. & Price, J. L. (1977) The cortical projections of the mediodorsal nucleus and adjacent thalamic nuclei in the rat. Journal of Comparative Neurology, 171, 157192.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Laing, D. G. (1985) Optimum perception of odor intensity of humans. Physiology & Behaviour, 34, 569.Google Scholar
Langston, J. W. (1985) MPTP and Parkinson's disease. Trends in Neurosciences, 8, 7983.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mair, R. G., Doty, R. L., Kelly, K. M., et al (1986) Multimodal sensory discrimination deficits in Korsakoff's psychosis. Neuropsychologica, 24, 831839.Google Scholar
Mann, D. M. A. (1988) The pathological association between Down's syndrome and Alzheimer's disease. Mechanisms of Ageing and Development, 43, 99136.Google Scholar
Mann, D. M. A., Tucker, C. M. & Yates, P. O. (1988) Alzheimer's disease: an olfactory connection? Mechanisms of Ageing and Development, 42, 115.Google Scholar
McEntee, W. J., Mair, R. G. & Langlais, P. J. (1984) Neurochemical pathology in Korsakoff's psychosis: implications for other cognitive disorders. Neurology, 34, 648652.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
McKenna, P. J. (1987) Pathology, phenomenology and the dopamine hypothesis of schizophrenia. British Journal of Psychiatry, 151, 288301.Google Scholar
Meyer, M. & Allison, A. C. (1949) Experimental investigation of the connexions of the olfactory tubercle in the monkey. Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry, 12, 274286.Google Scholar
Moberg, P. J., Pearlson, G. D., Speedie, L. J., et al (1984) Deficits in olfactory, but not visual or verbal recognition in early affecting Huntington's disease patients. Society for Neuroscience Abstracts, 10, 318.Google Scholar
Moore-Gillon, V. (1987) Testing the sense of smell. British Medical Journal, 294, 793794.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Nauta, W. J. H. (1971) The problem of the frontal lobes: a reinterpretation. Journal of Psychiatric Research, 8, 167187.Google Scholar
Neshige, R., Barrett, G. & Shibasaki, H. (1988) Auditory long latency event-related potentials in Alzheimer's disease and multi-infarct dementia. Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry, 51, 11201125.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ohm, T. G. & Braak, H. (1987) Olfactory bulb changes in Alzheimer's disease. Acta Neuropathologica (Berlin), 73, 365369.Google Scholar
Orwin, A., Wright, C. E., Harding, G. F. A., et al (1986) Serial visual evoked potential recordings in Alzheimer's disease. British Medical Journal, 293, 910.Google Scholar
Pearson, R. C. A., Esiri, M. M., Hiorns, R. W., et al (1985) Anatomical correlates of the distribution of the pathological changes in the neocortex in Alzheimer's disease. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, 82, 45314534.Google Scholar
Pearson, R. C. A., & Powell, T. P. S. (1989) The neuroanatomy of Alzheimer's disease. Reviews in Neuroscience, 2, 101122.Google Scholar
Perl, D. P. & Good, P. F. (1987) Uptake of aluminium into central nervous system along nasal-olfactory pathways. Lancet, i, 1028.Google Scholar
Pinching, A. J. (1977) Clinical testing of olfaction reassessed. Brain, 100, 377388.Google Scholar
Potter, H. & Nauta, W. J. H. (1979) A note on the problem of olfactory associations of the orbitofrontal cortex in the monkey. Neuroscience, 4, 361367.Google Scholar
Potter, H. & Butters, N. (1980) An assessment of olfactory deficits in patients with damage to prefrontal cortex. Neuropsychologica, 18, 621628.Google Scholar
Powell, T. P. S., Cowan, W. M. & Raisman, G. (1965) The central olfactory connections. Journal of Anatomy, 99, 791813.Google Scholar
Price, J. L. & Powell, T. P. S. (1970) An experimental study of the origin and the course of the centrifugal fibres to the olfactory bulb in the rat. Journal of Anatomy, 107, 215237.Google Scholar
Quinn, N. P., Rossor, M. N. & Marsden, C. D. (1986) Dementia and Parkinson's disease – pathological and neurochemical considerations. British Medical Bulletin, 42, 8690.Google Scholar
Quinn, N. P., Rossor, M. N. & Marsden, C. D. (1987) Olfactory threshold in Parkinson's disease. Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery, and Psychiatry, 50, 8889.Google Scholar
Rausch, R. & Serafinides, E. A. (1975) Specific alterations of olfactory function in humans with temporal lobe lesions. Nature, 255, 557558.Google Scholar
Reep, R. (1984) Relationship between prefrontal cortex and limbic cortex: a comparative neuroanatomical review. Brain, Behaviour and Evolution, 25, 580.Google Scholar
Rezek, D. L. (1987) Olfactory deficits as a neurologic sign in dementia of the Alzheimer type. Archives of Neurology, 44, 10311032.Google Scholar
Roberts, E. (1986) Alzheimer's disease may begin in the nose and may be caused by alumino-silicates. Neurobiology of Aging, 7, 561567.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roberts, G. W. (1988) Abnormalities in brain structure in schizophrenia. Current Opinion in Psychiatry, 1, 8389.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rossor, M. N. (1981) Parkinson's disease and Alzheimer's disease as disorders of the isodendritic core. British Medical Journal, 283, 15881590.Google Scholar
Schemper, T., Voss, S. & Cain, W. S. (1981) Odor identification in young and elderly persons: sensory and cognitive limitations. Journal of Gerontology, 36, 446452.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schiffman, S. S. (1983) Taste and smell in disease. New England Journal of Medicine, 308, 12751279, 1337–1343.Google Scholar
Serby, M. (1987) Olfactory deficits in Alzheimer's disease. Journal of Neural Transmission, suppl. 24, 6977.Google Scholar
Serby, M., Corwin, J., Conrad, P., et al (1985) Olfactory dysfunction in Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease. American Journal of Psychiatry, 142, 781782.Google Scholar
Shipley, M. T. (1985) Transport of molecules from nose to brain: transneuronal anterograde and retrograde labeling in the rat olfactory system by wheat germ agglutinin-horseradish peroxidase applied to the nasal epithelium. Brain Research Bulletin, 15, 129142.Google Scholar
Simpson, J., Yates, C. M., Gordon, A., et al (1984) Olfactory tubercle choline acetyltransferase activity in Alzheimer-type dementia, Down's syndrome and Huntington's disease. Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery, and Psychiatry, 47, 11381140.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Slotnik, B. M. & Kaneko, N. (1981) Role of mediodorsal thalamic nucleus in olfactory discrimination learning in rats. Science, 214, 9192.Google Scholar
Smith, C. G. (1942) Age incidence of atrophy of olfactory nerves in man: a contribution to the study of the process of aging. Journal of Comparative Neurology, 77, 589596.Google Scholar
St Clair, D. M. (1984) Letter. Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry, 48, 849.Google Scholar
Staubli, U., Roman, F. & Lynch, G. (1984) Hippocampal denervation causes rapid forgetting of olfactory information in rats. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, 81, 58855887.Google Scholar
Staubli, U., Schottler, F. & Nejat-Bina, D. (1987) Role of dorsomedial thalamic nucleus and piriform cortex in processing olfactory information. Behavioural Brain Research, 25, 117129.Google Scholar
Switzer, R. C., de Olmos, J. & Heimer, L. (1985) Olfactory systems. In The Rat Nervous System, vol. 1, Forebrain and Midbrain (ed. Paxinos, G.), pp. 136. Sydney: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Talamo, B. R., Rudel, R. A., Kosik, K. A., et al (1989) Pathological changes in olfactory neurons in patients with Alzheimer's disease. Nature, 337, 736739.Google Scholar
Tanabe, T., Yarita, H., Ooshuma, Y., et al (1975) An olfactory projection area in the orbitofrontal cortex of the monkey. Journal of Neurophysiology, 38, 12691283.Google Scholar
Tanner, C. (1989) The role of environmental toxins in the aetiology of Parkinson's disease. Trends in Neuroscience, 12, 4952.Google Scholar
Ulrich, J. (1985) Alzheimer changes in non-demented patients younger than sixtyfive: possible early stages of Alzheimer's disease and senile dementia of the Alzheimer type. Annals of Neurology, 17, 273277.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Waldton, S. (1974) Clinical observations of impaired cranial nerve function in senile dementia. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica, 50, 539547.Google Scholar
Ward, C. D., Hess, W. A. & Calne, D. B. (1983) Olfactory impairment in Parkinson's disease. Neurology, 33, 943946.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Warner, M. D., Peabody, C. A., Flattery, J. J., et al (1986) Olfactory deficits and Alzheimer's disease. Biological Psychiatry, 21, 116118.Google Scholar
Warner, M. D., Peabody, C. A., & Berger, P. A. (1988) Olfactory deficits and Down's syndrome. Biological Psychiatry, 23, 836839.Google Scholar
Submit a response

eLetters

No eLetters have been published for this article.