Genetic Epidemiology, Translational Neurogenomics, Psychiatric Genetics and Statistical Genetics Laboratories investigate the pattern of disease in families, particularly identical and non-identical twins, to assess the relative importance of genes and environment in a variety of important health problems.
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PMID
18948833
TITLE
Self-ratings of olfactory function reflect odor annoyance rather than olfactory acuity.
ABSTRACT
OBJECTIVE/HYPOTHESIS NlmCategory: OBJECTIVE
Self-ratings of olfactory function often correlates poorly with results of objective smell tests. We explored these ratings relative to self-rating of odor annoyance, to odor identification ability, and to mean perceived intensity of odors, and estimated relative genetic and environmental contributions to these traits.
PARTICIPANTS AND METHODS NlmCategory: METHODS
A total of 1,311 individual twins from the general population (62% females and 38% males, aged 10-83 years, mean age 29 years) including 191 monozygous and 343 dizygous complete twin pairs from Australia, Denmark, Finland, and the United Kingdom rated their sense of smell and annoyance caused by ambient smells (e.g., smells of foods) using seven categories, and performed odor identification and evaluation task for six scratch-and-sniff odor stimuli.
RESULTS NlmCategory: RESULTS
The self-rating of olfactory function correlated with the self-rating of odor annoyance (r = 0.30) but neither correlated with the odor identification score. Quantitative genetic modeling revealed no unambiguously significant genetic contribution to variation in any of the studied traits.
CONCLUSION NlmCategory: CONCLUSIONS
The results suggest that environmental rather than genetic factors modify the self-rating of olfactory function and support earlier findings of discrepancy between subjective and objective measures of olfactory function. In addition, the results imply that the self-rating of olfactory function arises from experienced odor annoyance rather than from actual olfactory acuity.
DATE PUBLISHED
2008 Dec
HISTORY
PUBSTATUS PUBSTATUSDATE
pubmed 2008/10/25 09:00
medline 2009/01/01 09:00
entrez 2008/10/25 09:00
AUTHORS
NAME COLLECTIVENAME LASTNAME FORENAME INITIALS AFFILIATION AFFILIATIONINFO
Knaapila A Knaapila Antti A Department of Food Technology, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland. antti.knaapila@helsinki.fi
Tuorila H Tuorila Hely H
Kyvik KO Kyvik Kirsten O KO
Wright MJ Wright Margaret J MJ
Keskitalo K Keskitalo Kaisu K
Hansen J Hansen Jonathan J
Kaprio J Kaprio Jaakko J
Perola M Perola Markus M
Silventoinen K Silventoinen Karri K
INVESTIGATORS
JOURNAL
VOLUME: 118
ISSUE: 12
TITLE: The Laryngoscope
ISOABBREVIATION: Laryngoscope
YEAR: 2008
MONTH: Dec
DAY:
MEDLINEDATE:
SEASON:
CITEDMEDIUM: Internet
ISSN: 1531-4995
ISSNTYPE: Electronic
MEDLINE JOURNAL
MEDLINETA: Laryngoscope
COUNTRY: United States
ISSNLINKING: 0023-852X
NLMUNIQUEID: 8607378
PUBLICATION TYPE
PUBLICATIONTYPE TEXT
Journal Article
Multicenter Study
Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural
Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
Twin Study
COMMENTS AND CORRECTIONS
GRANTS
GRANTID AGENCY COUNTRY
AA-12502 NIAAA NIH HHS United States
GENERAL NOTE
KEYWORDS
MESH HEADINGS
DESCRIPTORNAME QUALIFIERNAME
Adolescent
Adult
Aged
Aged, 80 and over
Attitude
Child
Discrimination (Psychology) physiology
Diseases in Twins psychology
Female psychology
Humans psychology
Male psychology
Middle Aged psychology
Odors psychology
Olfaction Disorders psychology
Predictive Value of Tests psychology
Sensory Thresholds physiology
Smell genetics
Social Environment genetics
Temperament genetics
Young Adult genetics
SUPPLEMENTARY MESH
GENE SYMBOLS
CHEMICALS
OTHER ID's