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Body frozen, but their minds are not (catatonia) + Secret of disordered smell found

#1
C C Offline
Catatonia: the person’s body may be frozen, but their minds are not – new study
https://theconversation.com/catatonia-th...udy-182632

INTRO: Occasionally, as a doctor, I am asked to see a patient in the emergency department who is completely mute. They sit motionless, staring around the room. I lift up their arm and it stays in that position. Someone takes a blood test and they don’t even wince. They haven’t eaten or drunk anything for a day or two.

Questions start running through your mind. What’s wrong with them? Would they respond to someone else? Do they have a brain injury? Are they putting it on? And – hardest of all – how am I to know what’s going on if they can’t tell me?

I’m a psychiatrist and a researcher specialising in a rare condition known as catatonia, a severe form of mental illness where people have problems with movement and speech. Catatonia can last anywhere from a few hours to weeks, months or even years. Some people have reoccuring episodes. I’ve spoken to doctors, nurses, academics, patients and carers about this condition. One question comes up more than any other: what are people with catatonia thinking? Are they even thinking?

When a person can hardly move or speak, it’s easy to assume that they aren’t conscious either. Research in recent years has shown that this isn’t the case. In fact, if anything, it’s the opposite. People with catatonia often express intense anxiety and say they feel overwhelmed with feelings. It’s not that people with catatonia have no thoughts - it might be that they have too many.

But what are these thoughts? What could the mind possibly do that would make you freeze? In a new study, my colleagues and I have tried to shed some light on this... (MORE - details)


Secret of disordered smell found
https://www.reading.ac.uk/news/2022/Rese...ered-smell

RELEASE: For people with parosmia, or distorted sense of smell, the aroma of freshly ground coffee can be as disgusting as burning rubbish. Now, researchers have discovered the secrets of why certain food and drinks smell (and likely taste) disgusting to people with parosmia.

In new research published in Communications Medicine, a team of scientists have found that certain highly potent odour molecules found in coffee trigger the sense of disgust which is associated with parosmia. Take 2-furanmethanethiol -- the most potent aroma molecule that you've never heard of before. It is one of those molecules that has been driving people to their wit's end.

By trapping the aroma of coffee, the team were able to test coffee compounds on volunteers who had parosmia and compare their reaction with those who didn't. From the hundred or so aroma compounds present in coffee, people with parosmia could point to those responsible for the sense of disgust. Among the 29 volunteers, scientists found 15 commonly identified compounds that triggered parosmia.

Dr Jane Parker, Associate Professor of Flavour Chemistry and Director of the Flavour Centre at the University of Reading said:

"This is solid evidence that it's not all "in the head," and that the sense of disgust can be related to the compounds in the distorted foods. The central nervous system is certainly involved as well in interpreting the signals that it receives from the nose. The parosmic experience is a combination of the two mechanisms which produces the distorted perception of everyday foods, and the associated sense of disgust.

"We can now see that certain aroma compounds found in foods are having this particular effect. It will, we hope, be reassuring for those with parosmia to know that their experience is "real," that we can identify other foods which may also be triggers and, moreover, suggest "safe" foods that are less likely to cause a problem. This research provides useful tools and strategies for preventing or reducing the effect of the triggers."

Mr Simon Gane, one of the researchers, from the Royal National Ear, Nose and Throat and Eastman Dental Hospital said: "We still have a long way to go in understanding this condition, but this research is the first to zoom in on the mechanism in the nose. We now know this has to be something to do with the nerves and their receptors because that's how these molecules are detected."

Some of the most cited food and drinks that set off parosmia in sufferers include:

Coffee
Onions
Garlic
Chicken
Green peppers

The study used a technique called GC-Olfactometry. The aroma from the coffee is introduced into one end of a very long and narrow pipe called a capillary. Some of the aroma compounds travel through the capillary faster than others. The fastest ones come out of the other end first and the slower ones come out later, thereby separating the compounds out so that the volunteers could smell them and describe them one by one.

Prior to the global pandemic caused by Covid-19, parosmia was a rare condition known to occur after infections such as cold, flu or sinus infections, with very little awareness about the causes and treatments for the disease.

During the pandemic Covid-19 symptoms included loss of smell and taste in 50-60% of cases, of which about 10% developed parosmia. While, since the Omicron variant, loss of smell and taste has become a less common symptom (estimated to occur in about 10-20% of cases) and parosmia cases are likley to be fewer in number, parosmia is still estimated to affect 2 million people in Europe.

AbScent is the charity caring about people touched by smell loss. AbScent is an unrivalled resource of trusted information delivered by a distinguished advisory board and working with the latest scientific and clinical evidence.
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#2
stryder Offline
On the subject of Catatonia:
I would suggest the state is caused by a person not being able to Serialize (wikipedia.org). How I mean is that when we are conscious we attempt to take all the information we observe through our senses and apply it together to percieve and interact with the world, as well as how we feel.

A breakdown in Serialization could be down to an increase or decrease in; sugar levels (Diabetes), dopamine, seratonin, even various vitamins or minerals.

Breaking how the information from our senses is compiled together leaves the brain not knowing how to handle the information. This means either all stimuli becomes unbearable (like entering a crowded room and suffering from agoraphobia) or literally shutting it all off (Catatonia)

It should be considered that we all have a capacity to filter out information from a noisy background (listening to one conversation in an environment were everyone is talking), it's just if that filteration is applied to all inputs with no particular element being listened for would you get a state of catatonia.
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