• HOME
  • NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
Monday, September 1, 2025
BIOENGINEER.ORG
No Result
View All Result
  • Login
  • HOME
  • NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
        • Lecturer
        • PhD Studentship
        • Postdoc
        • Research Assistant
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
  • HOME
  • NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
        • Lecturer
        • PhD Studentship
        • Postdoc
        • Research Assistant
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
No Result
View All Result
Bioengineer.org
No Result
View All Result
Home NEWS Science News Biology

Could olfactory loss point to Alzheimer’s disease?

Bioengineer by Bioengineer
August 16, 2017
in Biology
Reading Time: 3 mins read
0
Share on FacebookShare on TwitterShare on LinkedinShare on RedditShare on Telegram

Odor identification tests may help scientists track the evolution of the disease in persons at risk

By the time you start losing your memory, it`s almost too late. That`s because the damage to your brain associated with Alzheimer's disease (AD) may already have been going on for as long as twenty years. Which is why there is so much scientific interest in finding ways to detect the presence of the disease early on. Scientists now believe that simple odor identification tests may help track the progression of the disease before symptoms actually appear, particularly among those at risk.

"Despite all the research in the area, no effective treatment has yet been found for AD," says Dr. John Breitner, the director of the Centre for Studies on Prevention of Alzheimer's Disease at the Douglas Mental Health Research Centre of McGill University. He is one of the authors of the study on the subject that was recently published in the journal Neurology. "But, if we can delay the onset of symptoms by just five years, we should be able to reduce the prevalence and severity of these symptoms by more than 50%."

Bubble gum or gasoline?

Close to 300 people with an average age of 63 who are at risk of developing AD because they had a parent who had suffered from the disease, were asked to take multiple choice scratch-and-sniff tests to identify scents as varied as bubble gum, gasoline or the smell of a lemon. One hundred of them also volunteered to have regular lumbar punctures to measure the quantities of various AD-related proteins whose presence in the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF).

The researchers found that those with the most difficulty in identifying odors were those in whom other, purely biological indicators of AD, were most evident.

"This is the first time that anyone has been able to show clearly that the loss of the ability to identify smells is correlated with biological markers indicating the advance of the disease," says Marie-Elyse Lafaille-Magnan, a doctoral student at McGill and the first author on the study. "For more than 30 years, scientists have been exploring the connection between memory loss and the difficulty that patients may have in identifying different odours. This makes sense because it's known that the olfactory bulb (involved with the sense of smell) and the entorhinal cortex (involved with memory and naming of odours) are among the first brain structures first to be affected by the disease."

A cheaper way to track progression of Alzheimer's disease

"This means that a simple smell test may potentially be able to give us information about the progression of the disease that is similar to the much more invasive and expensive tests of the cerebrospinal fluid that are currently being used," the director of research program on Aging, Cognition and Alzheimer's disease of the Douglas Institute and one of the authors on the study. "However, problems identifying smells may be indicative of other medical conditions apart from AD and so should not be substituted for the current tests."

The researchers caution more that far more work needs to be done to see how changes in a person's ability to identify smells over time relates to the progression of the disease itself. For the time being, smell tests are simply one more avenue to explore as researchers look for ways to identify the disease before the symptoms actually begin to appear.

###

Media Contact

Katherine Gombay
[email protected]
514-398-2189
@McGillU

http://www.mcgill.ca

https://www.mcgill.ca/newsroom/channels/news/could-olfactory-loss-point-alzheimers-disease-269504

Share12Tweet7Share2ShareShareShare1

Related Posts

Unraveling Odorant Proteins in Kissing Bugs

September 1, 2025

Drumming in Mongolian Gerbils: Context or Arousal?

September 1, 2025

Seasonal Brain Shrinkage in Shrews Caused by Water Loss, Not Cell Death

September 1, 2025

Lower IGF1 Levels in Preeclampsia Affect Trophoblasts

September 1, 2025
Please login to join discussion

POPULAR NEWS

  • blank

    Breakthrough in Computer Hardware Advances Solves Complex Optimization Challenges

    153 shares
    Share 61 Tweet 38
  • Molecules in Focus: Capturing the Timeless Dance of Particles

    143 shares
    Share 57 Tweet 36
  • New Drug Formulation Transforms Intravenous Treatments into Rapid Injections

    117 shares
    Share 47 Tweet 29
  • Do people and monkeys see colors the same way?

    112 shares
    Share 45 Tweet 28

About

We bring you the latest biotechnology news from best research centers and universities around the world. Check our website.

Follow us

Recent News

Tailored Risk Messages Show No Impact on Increasing Colorectal Cancer Screening Rates

New Predictive Model for Postpartum Hemorrhage in Cesarean Cases

Novel ADC Targets Fucosyl-GM1 in Lung Cancer

  • Contact Us

Bioengineer.org © Copyright 2023 All Rights Reserved.

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In
No Result
View All Result
  • Homepages
    • Home Page 1
    • Home Page 2
  • News
  • National
  • Business
  • Health
  • Lifestyle
  • Science

Bioengineer.org © Copyright 2023 All Rights Reserved.