Skip Navigation


Chemical Senses Advance Access originally published online on January 25, 2006
Chemical Senses 2006 31(3):273-278; doi:10.1093/chemse/bjj029
This Article
Right arrow Full Text Freely available
Right arrow FREE Full Text (PDF) Freely available
Right arrow All Versions of this Article:
31/3/273    most recent
bjj029v1
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in ISI Web of Science
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My Personal Archive
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Right arrow Disclaimer
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Zucco, G. M.
Right arrow Articles by Gatta, A.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Zucco, G. M.
Right arrow Articles by Gatta, A.
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us  
What's this?

© The Author 2006. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

Olfactory Deficits in Patients Affected by Minimal Hepatic Encephalopathy: A Pilot Study

Gesualdo M. Zucco1, Piero Amodio2 and Angelo Gatta2

1 Department of General Psychology and 2 Department of Clinical and Experimental Medicine, University of Padua, Padova, Italy

Correspondence to be sent to: Gesualdo Zucco, Dipartimento di Psicologia Generale, Universitá di Paolova, Via Venezia 8, 35100 Padova, Italy. e-mail: zucco{at}unipd.it

Minimal hepatic encephalopathy (MHE) is the earliest stage of hepatic encephalopathy and is associated with changes in cognitive functions, in electrophysiological parameters, and in cerebral neurochemical/neurotransmitter homeostasis. MHE can be observed in patients with cirrhosis who have no clinical evidence of hepatic encephalopathy (HE). At present, no data are available on a possible olfactory dysfunction in such a syndrome, although the pathophysiology of HE may alter olfactory functions since some of the neurotransmitters impaired in the syndrome are involved in the transmission of olfactory information. In the present paper, we performed a preliminary study aimed at detecting whether identification and recognition odor memory is altered in patients with MHE. Twelve patients diagnosed as MHE on the basis of their scores at the portosystemic encephalopathy (PSE)-syndrome test battery, and 12 age-matched controls were studied. Consistent with the hypothesis, patients performed significantly worse than controls for both odor identification and recognition tasks. In addition, a significant correlation between the two olfactory tests and the PSE-syndrome test score was found. This pattern supports the notion that olfactory alterations related to cognitive dysfunction in patients with MHE may be linked to the pathophysiology of HE.

Key words: minimal hepatic encephalopathy, odor identification, odor recognition, virus-related cirrhosis


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us    What's this?




Disclaimer: Please note that abstracts for content published before 1996 were created through digital scanning and may therefore not exactly replicate the text of the original print issues. All efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, but the Publisher will not be held responsible for any remaining inaccuracies. If you require any further clarification, please contact our Customer Services Department.