Search

Background Olfactory dysfunction is common in aging and associated with dementia and mortality. However, longitudinal studies tracking change in olfactory ability are scarce. We sought to identify predictors of interindividual differences in rate of olfactory identification change in aging. Method Participants were 1780 individuals, without dementia at baseline and with at least 2 olfactory assessments over 12 years of follow-up (mean age = 70.5 years; 61.9% female), from the Swedish National Study on Aging and Care in Kungsholmen (SNAC-K). Odor identification was assessed with the Sniffin’ Sticks. We estimated the impact of demographic, health, and genetic factors on rate of olfactory change with linear mixed effect models. Results Advancing age, manufacturing profession, history of cerebrovascular disease, higher cardiovascular disease burden, diabetes, slower walking speed, higher number of medications, and the APOE ε4 allele were associated with accelerated odor identification decline (ps < .014). Multi-adjusted analyses showed unique associations of age, diabetes, and ε4 to olfactory decline (ps < .017). In 1531 participants who remained free of dementia (DSM IV criteria) during follow-up, age, cardiovascular disease burden, and diabetes were associated with accelerated decline (ps < .011). Of these, age and diabetes remained statistically significant in the multi-adjusted model (ps < .001). Conclusion Demographic, vascular, and genetic factors are linked to rate of decline in odor identification in aging. Although some olfactory loss may be an inevitable part of aging, our results highlight the importance of vascular factors for the integrity of the olfactory system, even in the absence of dementia.

Human and non-human animal research converge to suggest that the sense of smell, olfaction, has a high level of plasticity and is intimately associated with visual-spatial orientation and memory encoding networks. We investigated whether olfactory memory (OM) training would lead to transfer to an untrained visual memory (VM) task, as well as untrained olfactory tasks. We devised a memory intervention to compare transfer effects generated by olfactory and non-olfactory (visual) memory training. Adult participants were randomly assigned to daily memory training for about 40 days with either olfactory or visual tasks that had a similar difficulty level. Results showed that while visual training did not produce transfer to the OM task, olfactory training produced transfer to the untrained VM task. Olfactory training also improved participants’ performance on odor discrimination and naming tasks, such that they reached the same performance level as a high-performing group of wine professionals. Our results indicate that the olfactory system is highly responsive to training, and we speculate that the sense of smell may facilitate transfer of learning to other sensory domains. Further research is however needed in order to replicate and extend our findings.

Olfactory impairment is associated with dementia in clinical settings. We examined the relationship of olfactory identification function with all-cause dementia, Alzheimer's disease (AD), and vascular dementia (VaD) and assessed the discriminative ability of the Sniffin' Sticks Identification Test (SSIT), the self-rated Ascertain Dementia 8-item Questionnaire (AD8), and their combination for dementia detection among rural-dwelling older adults in China.This population-based cross-sectional study included 4481 participants (age ≥ 65 years; 56.8% women; 38.1% illiteracy) living in rural communities. The 16-item SSIT was performed to assess olfactory identification function. The self-rated AD8 was administered to participants for cognitive status. We diagnosed dementia, AD, and VaD following the international criteria. Data were analyzed with logistic regression models and receiver operating characteristic curve.Of the 4481 participants, dementia was diagnosed in 139 persons (3.1%), including 92 with AD and 42 with VaD. The SSIT score (range, 0-16) was associated with multiadjusted odds ratios of 0.83 (95% CI: 0.79-0.88) for dementia, 0.84 (0.79-0.90) for AD, and 0.79 (0.71-0.87) for VaD. The area under the curve for the discrimination between participants with and without dementia was 0.73 (95% CI: 0.69-0.77) for SSIT score ≤ 8 alone, 0.86 (0.82-0.89) for self-rated AD8 score ≥ 3 alone, and 0.89 (0.86-0.92) for their combination using a logistic model.Olfactory impairment is a clinical marker for all-cause dementia, AD, and VaD. The smell identification test, in combination with the brief self-rated cognitive screening tool, is accurate for screening dementia among rural-dwelling Chinese older adults with no or limited education.

In psychological experiments, behavioral speed varies across trials, and this variation is often associated with corresponding fluctuations in cortical activity. Little is known about such cortical variations in semantic priming tasks where target words are matched with preceding sensory object cues. Here, two visually presented target words ("pear" and "lilac") were repeatedly cued by corresponding odors or pictures, and the participants were to indicate matching or nonmatching combinations. Data were split in behaviorally "fast" versus "slow" trials. We hypothesized that slow trials would be associated with higher prestimulus alpha activity and reduced ERP amplitudes, and that response-time differences between odor-cued and picture-cued trials would be especially large in slow behavioral trials. Results confirmed that slow trials showed increased alpha-band activity prior to word target onset, as well as amplitude decreases in the sensory P1 and semantic N400 components. However, no interactions between cue-modality and processing speed were observed. Instead, odor-cue integration responses were uniquely delayed on incongruent trials, a novel behavioral effect that was not observed in EEG measures. The results show that semantic integration speed is reflected in cortical activity before and during stimulus processing. Behavioral interactions with cue modality did not correspond to observed cortical activity changes, perhaps because olfactory circuits are not readily observed in scalp-recorded EEG. We conclude that combining behavioral speed variability and cortical EEG measures is useful in understanding the fluctuating nature of cognitive processing sequences. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).

Visual stimuli often dominate nonvisual stimuli during multisensory perception. Evidence suggests higher cognitive processes prioritize visual over nonvisual stimuli during divided attention. Visual stimuli should thus be disproportionally distracting when processing incongruent cross-sensory stimulus pairs. We tested this assumption by comparing visual processing with olfaction, a “primitive” sensory channel that detects potentially hazardous chemicals by alerting attention. Behavioral and event-related brain potentials (ERPs) were assessed in a bimodal object categorization task with congruent or incongruent odor–picture pairings and a delayed auditory target that indicated whether olfactory or visual cues should be categorized. For congruent pairings, accuracy was higher for visual compared to olfactory decisions. However, for incongruent pairings, reaction times (RTs) were faster for olfactory decisions. Behavioral results suggested that incongruent odors interfered more with visual decisions, thereby providing evidence for an “olfactory dominance” effect. Categorization of incongruent pairings engendered a late “slow wave” ERP effect. Importantly, this effect had a later amplitude peak and longer latency during visual decisions, likely reflecting additional categorization effort for visual stimuli in the presence of incongruent odors. In sum, contrary to what might be inferred from theories of “visual dominance,” incongruent odors may in fact uniquely attract mental processing resources during perceptual incongruence. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

The ɛ4 allele of the Apolipoprotein E gene is a genetic risk factor for late-onset dementia of the Alzheimers' type (DAT), which is characterized by loss of both episodic memory and olfactory functions. Little is known about the possible role of ɛ4 in the association between ongoing episodic memory decline and olfactory deficits in the general population, but such information is relevant in determining the relevance of olfaction as a marker of DAT risk. The present study was based on a large, population-based sample (n=1087, aged 45-90 years, of which 324 were ɛ4-carriers). Episodic memory change rates were established using data collected every 5 years for a 10-20 year interval leading up to an olfactory assessment using the Scandinavian Odor Identification Test at the last wave of data collection. Participants were classified according to whether or not their episodic memory ability declined more rapidly than the age-typical norm (by >1SD). Our main result is that only in ɛ4-carriers was episodic memory decline associated with odor identification impairment. In individuals without ɛ4, odor identification was unrelated to episodic memory decline status. Follow-up analyses indicated that this moderation by ɛ4 was due to the olfactory nature of the identification test, and that the effect was not caused by 63 individuals with dementia. Our results suggest that the ɛ4 determines the functional association between ongoing episodic memory decline and olfaction. These findings are consistent with the notion that ɛ4-carriers with DAT, compared to non-carriers, display a cortical atrophy pattern that is more focused on mediotemporal lobe regions supporting olfactory and episodic memory functions. Olfactory and memory assessments might provide complementary information on mediotemporal atrophy prior to clinical dementia onset, but the ɛ4 should be considered when using olfactory assessment as an early-stage indicator.

Olfactory impairments may provide early indications of future health outcomes in older adults. Thus, an important question concerns whether these impairments can be self-assessed. Previous findings of cross-sectional studies indicate low correlations between self-reported olfactory function and objective olfactory performance. On the other hand, subjective olfactory impairments predict future dementia and mortality in longitudinal settings. No previous study has assessed the relationship between subjectively and objectively measured decline in olfaction over time. Based on data for 903 older adults derived from the Betula Study, a Swedish population-based prospective study, we tested whether rate-of-change in odor identification could be predicted from subjective olfactory decline over a time span of 10 years during which subjective and objective odor functions were assessed on 2 or 3 test occasions. Indeed, we found that participants who experienced subjective olfactory decline over the study period also had significantly steeper rates of decline in odor identification, even after adjusting for demographic, cognitive, and genetic factors that previously have been associated with performance in odor identification. This association was, however, not present in a subsample with baseline cognitive impairment. We interpret these results as evidence that when asked about whether they have an olfactory impairment or not, older persons are assessing intraindividual olfactory changes, rather than interindividual differences. Our results indicate that subjective olfactory loss reflects objective olfactory decline in cognitively intact older adults. This association might be harnessed to predict health outcomes and highlights the need to develop effective olfactory self-assessments.

Disgust plays a crucial role in the avoidance of pathogen threats. In many species, body odors provide important information related to health and disease, and body odors are potent elicitors of disgust in humans. With this background, valid assessments of body odor disgust sensitivity are warranted. In the present article, we report the development and psychometric validation of the Body Odor Disgust Scale (BODS), a measure suited to assess individual differences in disgust reaction to a variety of body odors. Collected data from 3 studies (total n = 528) show that the scale can be used either as a unidimensional scale or as a scale that reflects two hypothesized factors: sensitivity to one's own body odors versus those of others. Guided by our results, we reduced the scale to 12 items that capture the essence of these 2 factors. The final version of the BODS shows an excellent internal consistency (Cronbach's αs > 0.9). The BODS subscales show convergent validity with other general disgust scales, as well as with other olfactory functions measures and with aspects of personality that are related to pathogen avoidance. A fourth study confirmed the construct validity of the BODS and its measurement invariance to gender. Moreover, we found that, compared with other general disgust scales, the BODS is more strongly related to perceived vulnerability to disease. The BODS is a brief and valid assessment of trait body odor disgust sensitivity.