Tracking traumatic head injuries with the chemical senses.

Chemosensory disorders, primarily olfactory, have diagnostic significance for prevalent human illnesses, but the multitude of smells makes measuring function appear daunting. The olfactory system operates under dynamic natural sensing conditions in which many individual odor chemicals are waxing and waning. Yet, in experimentally controlled simulations, mixture-component selective adaptation shows individual or shared prominent characteristic odors are detected but molecular stimulus features are not. As in other biological chemical signaling systems, including taste, odors activate dedicated receptors (OR). Given rapid OR adaptation with the passage of time, individual odor recognition is momentary. Receptive dendrites of the nearly 400 genetically variable human-OR in the olfactory epithelium critically project axons to the olfactory bulb through perforations in the cribriform plate of the skull. Analytic chemical-quality codes detect single odor-mixture components. However, identities of no more than 3 or 4 most salient odors are perceived due to central mixture-suppression, the mutual inhibition among diverse olfactory-bulb or cortical neurons. The componental codes allow olfaction to readily discern odor quality and valence of a wide range of unrelated chemicals, a few at a time. Head trauma may result in a partial or complete loss of smell and facial trauma a loss of taste-nerve function. Testing smell could plot the course of recovery from chronic traumatic encephalopathies that prevail in contact sports. Measuring brain function with olfaction would provide simpler and more direct monitoring of prognosis than biochemical sensors.