EMBARGOED UNTIL: June
9th, 3:00 p.m. Central Time
COULD
AN IMPAIRED SENSE OF SMELL
EXPLAIN LOW SOCIAL DRIVE IN SCHIZOPHRENIA?
New
findings suggest that a faulty sense of smell may provide the key
to understanding the origins of social deficits. Very little is known
about the causes of the social problems in schizophrenia, a disease
that affects 1% of the population. Though most people are familiar
with the psychotic symptoms of schizophrenia such as delusional thinking
and hallucinations, it is the social deficit aspect of schizophrenia
that is often the most debilitating problem. Poor social drive robs
patients of their motivation and is one of the factors that prevents
them from holding a job, studying or caring for themselves when the
more overt symptoms are under control.
In
the June 9th issue of the Archives of General Psychiatry, Dr. Dolores
Malaspina, a clinical research psychiatrist at the New York State
Psychiatric Institute and Professor of Psychiatry at Columbia University,
and a colleague report on findings from a study examining whether
the smell identification deficits and low social drive in schizophrenia
were related. They found a strong correlation.
“This
suggests that there may be overlap in the brain pathways that interpret
smells and those that increase socialization in humans,” said Dr.
Malaspina. The locus in the brain where smells are interpreted may
in fact be the site where social behavior is determined. Abnormal
connections between brain cells in this area may lead to the social
deficits that are a hallmark of the disease. It is well known that
socialization is related to smell in other mammals and other recent
reports have also pointed to a possible link between olfaction and
some of the emotional deficits in individuals with schizophrenia.This
is the first study that has specifically linked smell identification
with social drive in humans.
The 70 schizophrenia and schizoaffective patients in the
study, along with the 68 controls, were given a smell identification
test (SIT), which was a multiple choice scratch and sniff test of
40 common odors, each with four possible choices, one of which was
the actual name. The results showed that 90% of the schizophrenia/schizoaffective
individuals “had a clinically significant impairment in olfaction
likely to have an impact on daily function, compared to only 11%”
of the individuals in the control group. Furthermore, the degree of
trouble in identifying odors was directly related to the decrease
in social drive that was present in the patients.
“This is an important finding, and it fits in with other data,” said
Dr. Lili Kopala, a clinical professor of psychiatry at the University
of British Columbia and a pioneer in olfaction-schizophrenia research.
Dr. Malaspina hopes that this work can lead to the discovery
of medications and other treatments for social problems in people
with schizophrenia.
The study was funded by the G. Harold and Leila Y. Mathers
Charitable Foundation and by NARSAD.
For more information
about the study or how to refer a patient, please contact Aphrodite
Kakouros at (212) 543-0266 during the hours between 9:00 am and 5:00 pm.
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