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Alcohol and Alcoholism Advance Access published online on September 29, 2004
Alcohol and Alcoholism, doi:10.1093/alcalc/agh100
© 2004 by Medical Council on Alcohol
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Received May 28, 2004
Revised August 18, 2004
Accepted September 6, 2004

Article

OLFACTORY FUNCTIONING IN PATIENTS WITH ALCOHOL DEPENDENCE: IMPAIRMENTS IN ODOR JUDGEMENTS

CLAUDIA I. RUPP 1*, W. WOLFGANG FLEISCHHACKER 1, ARMAND HAUSMANN 1, DOLORES MAIR 1, HARTMANN HINTERHUBER 1, and MARTIN KURZ 1

1 Department of Psychiatry, Medical University Innsbruck, Austria

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: claudia.rupp{at}uibk.ac.at.


  Abstract

Aims: Prior studies indicate that alcohol-dependent patients have impaired olfactory sensitivity, odor quality discrimination and identification ability. However, olfactory functioning with regard to the immediate, perception driven odor associations is unknown. Therefore, this study assessed olfactory judgements in nonamnesic and nondemented patients with alcohol dependence. Methods: Thirty alcohol-dependent patients and 30 healthy control subjects, well matched for gender, age and smoking status, and screened for olfactory sensitivity, were asked to rate intensity, familiarity, edibility and pleasantness of 16 odors using visual rating scales. Results: Compared with controls, patients showed lower scores in odor familiarity and impaired edibility judgements. These impairments were observed bilaterally, were present independently of age, gender, general mental abilities and length of abstinence, and not attributable to smoking or impaired olfactory sensitivity. No differences between groups were found in odor intensity and pleasantness judgements. Conclusions: These results extend prior findings of alcohol-related olfactory deficits, indicating impairments in olfactory processes of odor familiarity and edibility in alcohol-dependent patients. Although the basis of these deficits is still unknown, our finding of a distinct pattern of olfactory functional impairment and sparing (intensity, pleasantness) suggests that there is no generalized olfactory dysfunction, but neural olfactory networks may be affected differently. However, alcoholism appears to be associated with a variety of disturbances in olfactory processing.


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