Sanna Fabrizio, Loy Francesco, Piras Raffaella, Moat Alan, Masala Carla
Section of Neuroscience and Clinical Pharmacology, Department of Biomedical Sciences, University of Cagliari, Monserrato, Italy.
Section of Cytomorphology, Department of Biomedical Sciences, University of Cagliari, Monserrato, Italy.
Front Neurosci. 2021 Feb 22;15:599593. doi: 10.3389/fnins.2021.599593. eCollection 2021.
Previous studies reported a correlation between olfactory function and depression. However, in literature, no data are available for the correlation between depression and all other factors such as age, sex, olfactory, gustatory, and cognitive function in healthy subjects taken together. The aim of this study was to provide a systematic account regarding the association between those variables in a non-clinical population.
Two hundred and seventy-three participants were recruited with an age range of 19-84 years. Olfactory, gustatory, cognitive function, and depression level were evaluated by means of the following tests: the Sniffin' Sticks test, Taste Strips test, Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA), and Beck Depression Inventory (BDI).
In our data, an age-related decrease in olfactory and gustatory function and a decline in cognitive functions such as attention, memory, and language were observed. Instead, no significant differences were observed for the depression level in relation to the different age ranges. However, our results indicated that the depression level could be associated to sex, odor identification impairment, and decreased attention and language.
Sex, the odor identification impairment, and an age-related decrease in attention and language are associated with increased level of depression in healthy subjects. Our data can be useful and informative for health care workers, that is, to have adequate preventive strategies to be used whenever these conditions are detected and recognized.
先前的研究报道了嗅觉功能与抑郁症之间的相关性。然而，在文献中，尚无关于抑郁症与健康受试者的所有其他因素（如年龄、性别、嗅觉、味觉和认知功能）综合相关性的数据。本研究的目的是系统阐述非临床人群中这些变量之间的关联。
招募了273名年龄在19至84岁之间的参与者。通过以下测试评估嗅觉、味觉、认知功能和抑郁水平：嗅觉棒测试、味觉试纸测试、蒙特利尔认知评估量表（MoCA）和贝克抑郁量表（BDI）。
在我们的数据中，观察到嗅觉和味觉功能随年龄下降，以及注意力、记忆力和语言等认知功能下降。相反，不同年龄范围的抑郁水平未观察到显著差异。然而，我们的结果表明，抑郁水平可能与性别、气味识别障碍以及注意力和语言能力下降有关。
性别、气味识别障碍以及与年龄相关的注意力和语言能力下降与健康受试者的抑郁水平升高有关。我们的数据对医护人员可能有用且信息丰富，即当检测到并识别出这些情况时，有足够的预防策略可供使用。
