Lesson 6

Hi everyone! Today in among my 50+ calls from DVC members, I actually got to talk with another anosmic. For those of you scratching your head right now, that means you have no sense of smell, as I have not for the last 5 years. I don't know how we found we had that in common, but she lost hers due to multiple sinus surgeries, not all of which were successful. I had done a lot of reading shortly after losing mine, so I suggested to her one of the books I enjoyed; Season to Taste by Molly Birnbaum. My member then asked if I thought I would get mine back, and I immediately answered no. Then came the part that made me curious. She said that her doctors have told her that the smell neuron signals come from two places, one in the back of the nose the other in the brain, and that the ones in her nose look to be fine. This gives her hope that one day hers will come back.
After further research, I found that while there is the olfactory epithelium located at the back of the nose, there are multiple places the message could get lost after it leaves there. The first stop for all of them is the actual olfactory bulb, then on to the piriform cortex for identification, and on to the thalamus to be relayed to the brain. This is where it splits off to go to the orbitofrontal cortex to be integrated into taste information, and to the amygdala and hippocampus to trigger if you have memories related to this smell. Sounds like a long and winding road to me. Amazing how it all comes together in split seconds.
If you are wondering what the photo above is, the green parts at the bottom are odor sensing cells and the orange circles at the top are the olfactory bulb. It makes me wonder just where my disconnection is.
Until tomorrow...keep sniffing out new things!

If you would like more detailed info on this visit Making Sense of Scents: Smell and the Brain