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Originally posted by nixie_nox
in reply post
How did you come to that conclusion? That is interesting. I have a lot of bipolar sufferers in my life, and they seem to have a hyper sensitivities, though it may be different with sch.....
Warrick Brewer, a psychiatrist from the University of Melbourne in Australia, and colleagues compared the olfactory abilities of a group of 81 high-risk patients against those of 31 volunteers in a control group.
The at-risk group were recruited from a university sponsored clinic that monitors teens who appear to be developing a serious mental illness, yet have not yet had any psychotic episodes. After 18 months, 22 of the high-risk patients suffered psychotic episodes and 12 were found to be schizophrenic.
It is first important to understand the physiology of olfaction. The primary olfactory cortex, in which higher-level processing of olfactory information takes place, forms a direct link with the amygdala and the hippocampus.
Only two synapses separate the olfactory nerve from the amygdala, which is involved in experiencing emotion and also in emotional memory (Herz & Engen, 1996). In addition, only three synapses separate the olfactory nerve from the hippocampus, which is implicated in memory, especially working memory and short-term memory.
Olfaction is the sensory modality that is physically closest to the limbic system, of which the hippocampus and amygdala are a part, and which is responsible for emotions and memory. Indeed this may be why odor-evoked memories are unusually emotionally potent (1996).