Weizmann Institute Scientists Establish Link Between Sense of Smell and Autism
Could we soon stop autism in its early stages? Ask the Weizmann Institute scientists, who have found and proven a direct link between the developmental issues of autism and the sense of smell.
For a few years now, conventional medicine has been trying to find the connection between the sense of smell and autism. Recently, Israeli researchers from the Weizmann Institute not only proved the existence of this connection but also confirmed it. "We tend to take a deep breath when we encounter a pleasant smell and a shallower one when encountering a bad smell," says Liron Rosenkranz, a student from the neurobiology department, who participated in the research with Professor Noam Sobel. "It turns out that this phenomenon is linked to the cerebellum's activity—an area of the brain that, among other things, is associated with autism."
Since medicine has yet to develop a definitive test for diagnosing autism, it goes without saying that the researchers faced a significant challenge. By processing the data on a computer, the researchers created a special algorithm that was able to identify autism problems based solely on smell responses, in over 80% of cases. The study's results, recently published in the scientific journal Current Biology, demonstrate that individuals with autism respond to smells (whether pleasant or not) just as individuals with typical developmental patterns do.
What does this mean? It means that thanks to this finding, the stage for discovering autism might begin at very early ages, thereby allowing parents and teachers to prepare in advance with various treatments to strengthen and improve typical development.
