Department of Psychology, University of Dayton, Dayton, OH, USA; Department of Psychiatry, Wright State University Boonshoft School of Medicine, Dayton, OH, USA.
Department of Psychology, Long Island University, Brooklyn, NY, USA.
Psychiatry Res. 2018 Nov;269:345-353. doi: 10.1016/j.psychres.2018.08.058. Epub 2018 Aug 20.
The neurocircuitries subserving affective and olfactory processes overlap, are sexually dimorphic, and show disruptions in schizophrenia, suggesting their intersection may be a window on the core process producing psychosis. This study investigated diagnostic and sex differences in hedonic judgments of odors and smell identification in 26 schizophrenia cases and 27 healthy controls. Associations between olfaction measures and psychiatric symptoms were also examined. Cases and controls had similar identification accuracy of unpleasant odors, but cases were significantly less accurate in naming pleasant odors. In cases, greater negative symptom severity was related to abnormal hedonic judgments; specifically, higher pleasantness ratings for unpleasant odors and higher unpleasantness ratings for pleasant odors. Greater positive symptom severity was associated with lower pleasantness ratings for neutral odors. Regarding sex differences, male cases and female controls rated pleasant odors as significantly more unpleasant than male controls. Correlations between depression severity and pleasantness ratings of neutral odors were in opposite directions in male and female cases. These results suggest that a normal sexual dimorphism in the circuitry for hedonic odor judgments may interact with schizophrenia pathology, supporting the utility of olfactory hedonics as a sex-specific biomarker of this pathology.
参与情感和嗅觉过程的神经回路既有重叠，又存在性别二态性，且在精神分裂症中出现紊乱，这表明其交汇点可能是产生精神病核心过程的一个窗口。本研究调查了 26 例精神分裂症病例和 27 例健康对照者在嗅觉愉悦判断和嗅觉识别方面的诊断和性别差异。还研究了嗅觉测量与精神症状之间的关联。病例和对照组对不愉快气味的识别准确性相似，但病例对愉快气味的命名准确性显著降低。在病例中，更严重的阴性症状严重程度与异常的愉悦判断有关；具体来说，不愉快气味的愉悦度评分较高，愉快气味的不愉快度评分较高。更严重的阳性症状严重程度与中性气味的愉悦度评分较低有关。关于性别差异，男性病例和女性对照组对愉快气味的评价明显比男性对照组更不愉快。男性和女性病例中抑郁严重程度与中性气味愉悦度评分之间的相关性呈相反方向。这些结果表明，对愉悦性气味判断的神经回路中的正常性别二态性可能与精神分裂症病理相互作用，支持嗅觉愉悦性作为该病理的一种性别特异性生物标志物的效用。
