Familiarity,Cued and Free Odor Identification and Their Association with Cognitive Functioning in Middle Aged and Older Adults

ABSTRACT

The aim of the present study was to examine the association between familiarity of odors, cued and free odor identification performance and cognitive function in elderly adults. It was further investigated how age affects performance on the various odor tasks. A third aim was to investigate the role of familiarity in explaining performance on the free identification task. One hundred and thirty-six participants (aged 45–79 years) with normal olfactory sensitivity were assessed with the Scandinavian Odor Identification Test (SOIT) and standardized tests of cognitive function. Familiarity did not correlate with any measure of cognitive function, while verbal identification performance was associated with several cognitive measures, although correlations were modest. In this sample, free odor identification was affected by increasing age to a marginally larger extent than cued identification performance and familiarity ratings. The results suggest that the different olfactory tasks involve different levels of cognitive processing.     

Very Early Decline in Recognition Memory for Odors in Alzheimer’s Disease

When in the progression of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) a decline in detection sensitivity and recognition memory for odors begins, and whether a fast progression in dementia is related to a fast loss in odor sensitivity, was determined by studying 78 patients with probable AD, categorized as very mild, mild, or moderate in degree of dementia, and 78 controls. Taste and vision were studied for comparison. Whereas the earliest decline in odor sensitivity and visual memory was found in mild patients, a decline in odor memory was found in the very mild patients. Similar taste thresholds in the four groups suggest that the poor odor detectability in AD was not related to task demands in threshold testing. A fast progression in dementia was also found to be related to a fast loss in odor sensitivity. The findings imply that memory-based olfactory tests may contribute to early diagnosis of AD.     

Psychometric evaluation and normative data of the Swedish version of the 10‐item perceived stress scale

The perceived stress scale (PSS) has been translated to several languages and validated in many cultures. The longer 14‐item version (PSS‐14), has been translated to Swedish and validated for Swedish use. However, the Swedish version of the shorter 10‐item version (PSS‐10) has not been validated before. Therefore, the aim of this study was to evaluate the Swedish version of the PSS‐10 with regard to reliability and validity, and to provide normative data. Data from 3,406 individuals who took part in the Västerbotten Environmental Health Study in Sweden were used. The respondents constitute a random sample, aged 18 to 79 years, and stratified for age and sex. They responded to the Swedish version of the PSS‐10 as well as to the hospital anxiety and depression scale, and the Shirom Melamed burnout questionnaire for assessment of construct validity. The results show that the PSS‐10 provides approximately normally distributed data, has good internal reliability (Cronbach's alpha 0.84), and has good construct validity with anxiety (r = 0.68), depression (r = 0.57), and mental/physical exhaustion (r = 0.71). The favorable psychometric properties of the Swedish version of the PSS‐10 suggest use of the instrument for assessing perceived stress in Swedish and similar populations.     

Swedish University Students’ Opinion Regarding Information About Soft Markers

The aim of this study was to investigate the opinions of Swedish university students about information regarding soft markers, when observed at second trimester ultrasound screening. A cross-sectional survey, where 85 Swedish university students completed a study specific questionnaire containing eleven hypothetical scenarios, involving various parameters (disease/syndromes/malformations with different characteristics), and location of the markers. Almost all participants indicated that they would wish to be informed, prior to the ultrasound examination, about the assessment and significance of soft markers. However, the number of respondents who requested information about a potential actual finding was considerably less. Several participants wanted to be informed about detected markers associated to serious conditions but not when the marker indicated an increased risk for a treatable disease. Also, the specific location of the marker was of importance to the participants. The majority of respondents wished to be informed about the soft markers if they were observed in the heart or the brain of the foetus, compared to if they were located in the intestine or the skeleton. The students’ opinion, in this study, implicate the importance of pre-examination information to enable expectant parents to make informed choice regarding the second trimester ultrasound screening as well as on reciving information of actual findings.     

The Role of Science in Medicine

Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics - A suitable demarcation between pure science and applied research can be drawn in terms of their goals. This distinction of goals has methodological and cultural...     

Context effects,reliability, and internal consistency of intermodal joint scaling

Context effects, intraindividual variability, and internal consistency of intermodal joint scaling with magnitude estimation (“magnitude matching”) were studied by instructing 12 subjects to judge the three pairs of odor intensity, loudness, and brightness on a common scale of perceived intensity as well as to judge odor intensity separately (unimodal magnitude estimation). Significant context effects were found by comparing odor intensity judgments obtained by separate versus intermodal joint scaling as well as across different modalities (loudness vs. brightness) in joint scaling. But no such effects were found for loudness or brightness when compared across modality of joint scaling. Intraindividual variability in the estimates imply about equal reliability in intermodal joint scaling and separate scaling. Good internal consistency was found, indicating that subjects are successful in expressing perceived intensities of different modalities on a common scale.     

Variability of normal grapho-elements and the assessment of abnormal grapho-elements in the EEG of clinically healthy test persons

The percentage pattern and topical distribution of alpha, beta, theta and delta waves, the occipital voltage level asymmetry of the alpha waves and the frequency of temporal functional disorders were studied in 100 17-year-olds, 273 male test persons of various age and 6,000 healthy persons. The results indicated that 1/4--1/8 of the test section is precentrally taken up by theta waves in the E.E.G. of healthy 17-year-olds. Random sampling on a larger scale shows that left occipital alpha wave domination is just as frequent as on the right; voltage level symmetry occurs only in 13--23 per cent of all cases. Three per cent of the clinically healthy persons showed local temporal E.E.G. anomalies which were on the left in 96 per cent of the cases. Attention is drawn to possible consequences with regard to nomenclature, evaluation and diagnostic assessment.     

Is the P600/SPS affected by the richness of semantic content? A linguistic ERP study in Swedish

The study investigated whether the P600/SPS component is sensitive to the richness of semantic content in sentences. ERPs were recorded while 30 native Swedish speakers read sentences, of which half were syntactically correct and half contained a syntactic violation. Both kinds of sentences came in one of three types of descending semantic completeness: semantically coherent sentences, sentences which were incoherent due to violations of selectional restrictions, or sentences of pseudo words, hence void of lexical content. In the semantically coherent sentences a P600/SPS was found for the syntactic violation. A less salient positivity was found for the violation in the semantically incoherent sentences. No P600/SPS was found for the syntactic violation in the pseudo word sentences and no LAN component in any sentence type. The results are interpreted as supporting the hypothesis that the P600/SPS component reflects a semantically based reanalysis process.     

Intolerance to ambient odors at an early stage of pregnancy

Adverse reactions to ambient odorous and pungent substances in daily activities among pregnant women who are half-way through pregnancy, and changes in odor perception at predominantly an early stage of pregnancy motivated the present study of odor intolerance at an early pregnancy stage. Ninety-five women averaging gestational week 11 and 102 non-pregnant women were compared with the Chemical Sensitivity Scale for Sensory Hyperreactivity (CSS-SHR). General environmental intolerance was assessed with items from the Noise Sensitivity Scale that are analogous to the CSS-SHR ("NSS-SHR"). Pregnant women were found to have higher scores on the CSS-SHR, but not on the "NSS-SHR". This suggests an odor intolerance that affects pregnant women's daily activities, which appears not to be due to a general environmental intolerance. The effect size of pregnancy on CSS-SHR score is larger in the present study of early pregnancy than in the previous study of women half-way through pregnancy.     

CSF 5-HIAA Predicts Suicide Risk After Attempted Suicide

Suicide risk after attempted suicide, as predicted by cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) monoamine metabolite concentrations, was studied in a sample of 92 psychiatric mood disorder inpatients admitted shortly after attempting suicide. The potential of the serotonin metabolite 5-hydroxyindoleacetic acid (5-HIAA) in the CSF to predict suicide risk within the first year after attempted suicide was studied by means of survival analysis after median split sub-grouping. Eleven patients (12%) committed suicide within 1 year after attempted suicide. Eight of these belonged to the below-the-median (< 87 nM) CSF 5-HIAA subgroup, that is, the suicide risk was 17% as compared with 7% among those with above-the-median CSF 5-HIAA. The cumulative number of survived patient-months during the first year after attempted suicide was significantly lower in the low CSF 5-HIAA subgroup. It was concluded that low CSF 5-HIAA predicts short-range suicide risk after attempted suicide in mood disorder psychiatric inpatients. These findings lend further support to the serotonin hypothesis of suicide risk.