Out of all the five senses, smell and taste don't get as much attention, especially the loss of it. Perhaps it's because we can still live a relatively normal life even without the full sensation of smell or taste, unlike sight or hearing. But Julian Meeks, a professor of neuroscience at the University of Rochester asserts the greater need for the loss of smell, or anosmia, to be studied.
Growing up, Julian Meeks knew what a life without a sense of smell could look like. He’d watched his grandfather navigate the condition, known as anosmia, observing that he didn’t perceive flavor and only enjoyed eating very salty or meaty foods.
The experience influenced him, in part, to study chemosensation, which involves both smell and taste. Meeks, now a professor of neuroscience at the University of Rochester, told Undark that neither gets much attention compared to other senses: “Often, they’re thought of as second or third in order of importance.”
Hannah Docter-Loeb of Undark sat down with Prof. Meeks to talk about anosmia and the struggle he's had to support the study of it.
(Image credit: Battlecreek Coffee Roasters/Unsplash)
Newest 1 Comment
I knew a girl in jr high school that had no sense of smell. She was not a picky eater (like I am) and would eat anything. I asked her, one time at lunch, while she ate green beans! if she had ever tasted or smelled anything at all. She said they only time she had ever smelled anything was when she accidentally spilled her mother's perfume on the bed and she pushed her face into the puddle and she could smell that perfume.
Abusive comment hidden.
(Show it anyway.)