Nasal database

2000/04/04 Roa Zubia, Guillermo - Elhuyar Zientzia

• Anatomia/Fisiologia

Separating the smell from the beans from the wine is not as simple as it seems. There are people who have a very fine smell, so they may notice an excess of odors. Others, however, have little smell; when it is total it is called ‘anosmia’, a disease that can lead to confusion of odors.

But how do smells separate? In the world of commerce, what smells have the perfect points? Researchers at Cornell University in New York State try to clarify the odour profiles and define them as standards.

In her Jane Friedrich is doing her doctoral thesis, working on the development of odour models. "Imagine that you have just smelled an oil with the smell of jasmine, which can be considered a pure smell. The ability to identify the smell of Jasmin is based on a group of receptor proteins. These proteins make a pattern that your brain can identify," he says. But although they are totally defined smells, for example, the smell of jasmine, each smells their way, each of them in the same way.

Friedrich presented his results at the national meeting of the American Chemical Society on 26 March in San Francisco. The title of the study was: Selection of standard smells using Gas Chromatography.

Strange scarcity

One of the causes of this olfactory change is the "specific anosmia" effect. It is the blindness of smell, that is, the lack of sensitivity to certain chemicals or to families of substances, in people who have no other smell problem. Specific anosmia poses a special challenge for scientists, as it is a source of data distorted in tests based on smell.

Friedrich has analyzed a typical example related to sensory testing. This is a problem raised in a study conducted 30 years ago in a California laboratory. Practitioners had to smell isobutyric acid. This acid resembles the smell of dirty stockings or goats for most of the population. But for the two who tested the butyric had a pleasant smell, like that of a fruit, an apple smell. Subsequent experiments showed that these people had specific anosmia with butyric acid and that the smell of fruit was due to impurities containing acid samples.

"If a company wants to make a refreshing air and one of its essayists has a specific anosmia regarding this product, it may forget very little and modify its composition. This will make consumers notice an excessive smell," says Friedrich. “That’s a problem.”

Working with chemical tools

Researchers Jane Friedrich and Terry Acree have analyzed gas chromatograph compounds related to specific anosmia. Researchers try to clarify the sensitivity to substances and their relationship with the genetics of olfactory proteins. Now people can qualify for the ability to take standard odors if tested with a scent set. This set will help identify those who have specific anosmia.

Friedrich, using standard smells, can distinguish types of people classified by smell. Tests performed on 10 people. Each of them tested between 3 and 30 weeks. Friedrich and Acre have classified people into three types: hyperosmic (high sensitivity), hyposmic (normal level) and anosmic. "This can help other researchers guide the analysis," says Friedrich, "Our current goal will be to reduce the entire test to three odour levels."