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Can't recognise certain smells, may develop a brain disorder

By Indo-Asian News Service (IANS)
Tuesday February 6, 08:42 AM
http://in.news.yahoo.com/070206/43/6btt8.html

Sydney, Feb 6 (DPA) If you can't recognise certain smells, you might be in line for Alzheimer's, Parkinson's disease, obsessive-compulsive disorder or schizophrenia, Australian research suggests.

Researchers at Melbourne University came up with a set of 40 scratch-and-sniff cards and asked people to identify different aromas like oranges, coffee, petrol and roses.

More than half of those who had trouble sorting out the smells went on to develop a brain disorder. Christos Pantelis told national broadcaster ABC that olfactory ability provided information about brain structure and function.

'Mental illness can arrest the full maturation of the frontal lobe, while degenerative illness can damage it,' Pantelis said. 'This area of the brain is used to analyse and identify smells, so an abnormal sense of smell may indicate problems in this 'thinking' area of the brain.'