Department of Physiology II, Showa University School of Medicine, Japan.
Neurosci Lett. 2011 Oct 10;503(3):163-6. doi: 10.1016/j.neulet.2011.08.006. Epub 2011 Aug 22.
This study aimed to test whether type 1 myotonic dystrophy (DM1) patients who have a lower sensitivity to emotional facial expressions have an abnormal olfactory threshold or recognition level. We measured DM1 patients' performances in an olfactory acuity test and respiratory responses to odor stimuli, and compared their results to those of healthy controls (HCs). We found that DM1 patients exhibited a significantly reduced odor detection sensitivity compared with that in HCs. Three out of seven DM1 patients exhibited impaired odor recognition, while other four patients had significantly lower odor recognition compared with HCs. Even when patients were able to identify the type of odor, the levels of pleasantness they reported experiencing in response to a pleasant odor were significantly lower than those reported by HCs. These subjective data in DM1 patients were reflected in the respiratory responses (RRs). In the current study, one patient showed impairments in both odor detection and odor recognition. Abnormalities of the olfactory limbic areas might have been the cause of the olfactory impairments observed in the DM1 patients.
本研究旨在测试 1 型肌强直性营养不良 (DM1) 患者对情绪面部表情的敏感性较低是否与嗅觉阈值或识别水平异常有关。我们测量了 DM1 患者在嗅觉敏锐度测试中的表现以及对气味刺激的呼吸反应，并将结果与健康对照组 (HC) 进行了比较。我们发现，与 HCs 相比，DM1 患者的嗅觉检测敏感性明显降低。7 名 DM1 患者中有 3 名存在嗅觉识别障碍，而其他 4 名患者的嗅觉识别能力明显低于 HCs。即使患者能够识别气味类型，他们对愉快气味的愉悦感报告水平也明显低于 HCs。DM1 患者的这些主观数据反映在呼吸反应 (RR) 中。在本研究中，一名患者在嗅觉检测和嗅觉识别方面均存在障碍。嗅觉边缘区域的异常可能是 DM1 患者嗅觉障碍的原因。
