Patients with olfactory loss report alterations of dietary behaviors. Numerous factors appear to impact the results of olfactory loss in terms of changes in diet.

The purpose of this study was to examine weight concerns, dieting, body dissatisfaction as well as eating behavior of German high school athletes and to compare disordered eating behavior of these athletes with regular high school students. Five hundred and seventy-six young athletes of Elite Sports Schools in the German state of Thuringia and a reference group consisting of 291 non-athletes from regular high schools completed a questionnaire regarding eating behavior and attitudes, dietary history, body image and demographics. The Eating Attitude Test was used to measure disordered eating. Athletes did not show a higher frequency of disordered eating than non-athletes. A binary logistic regression analysis revealed that gender and dietary experience, but not group (athletes vs non-athletes), were significant predictors of disordered eating. It can be concluded that dietary experience and female gender proved to be important risk factors of disordered eating. Participation in sports seems to be protective for developing serious eating problems, especially in girls. Potentially, regular monitoring of athletic performance by coaches might be a reason for this finding.

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Frequent contact with human waste and liquid manure from intensive livestock breeding, and the increased loads of antibiotic-resistant bacteria that result, are believed to be responsible for the high carriage rates of ESBL-producing E. coli found in birds of prey (raptors) in Central Europe. To test this hypothesis against the influence of avian migration, we initiated a comparative analysis of faecal samples from wild birds found in Saxony-Anhalt in Germany and the Gobi-Desert in Mongolia, regions of dissimilar human and livestock population characteristics and agricultural practices. We sampled a total of 281 wild birds, mostly raptors with primarily north-to-south migration routes. We determined antimicrobial resistance, focusing on ESBL production, and unravelled the phylogenetic and clonal relatedness of identified ESBL-producing E. coli isolates using multi-locus sequence typing (MLST) and macrorestriction analyses. Surprisingly, the overall carriage rates (approximately 5%) and the proportion of ESBL-producers among E. coli (Germany: 13.8%, Mongolia: 10.8%) were similar in both regions. Whereas bla CTX-M-1 predominated among German isolates (100%), bla CTX-M-9 was the most prevalent in Mongolian isolates (75%). We identified sequence types (STs) that are well known in human and veterinary clinical ESBL-producing E. coli (ST12, ST117, ST167, ST648) and observed clonal relatedness between a Mongolian avian ESBL-E. coli (ST167) and a clinical isolate of the same ST that originated in a hospitalised patient in Europe. Our data suggest the influence of avian migratory species in the transmission of ESBL-producing E. coli and challenge the prevailing assumption that reducing human influence alone invariably leads to lower rates of antimicrobial resistance.

Despite the importance of breaches of taste identity expectation for survival, its neural correlate is unknown. We used fMRI in 16 women to examine brain response to expected and unexpected receipt of sweet taste and tasteless/odorless solutions. During expected trials (70%) subjects heard “sweet” or “tasteless” and received the liquid indicated by the cue. During unexpected trials (30%) subjects heard “sweet” but received tasteless or they heard “tasteless” but received sweet. Following delivery, subjects indicated stimulus identity by pressing a button. Reaction time was faster and more accurate following valid cuing, indicating that the cues altered expectancy as intended. Tasting unexpected vs. expected stimuli resulted in greater deactivation in fusiform gyri, possibly reflecting greater suppression of visual object regions when orienting to, and identifying, an unexpected taste. Significantly greater activation to unexpected vs. expected stimuli occurred in areas related to taste (thalamus, anterior insula), reward (VS, OFC), and attention (anterior cingulate cortex, inferior frontal gyrus, IPS). We also observed an interaction between stimulus and expectation in the anterior insula primary taste cortex. Here response was greater for unexpected vs. expected sweet compared to unexpected vs. expected tasteless, indicating that this region is preferentially sensitive to breaches of taste expectation. Connectivity analyses confirmed that expectation enhanced network interactions, with IPS and VS influencing insular responses. We conclude that unexpected oral stimulation results in suppression of visual cortex and up-regulation of sensory, attention, and reward regions to support orientation, identification and learning about salient stimuli.

Background: Smoking cessation is often followed by weight gain. Eating behaviors and weight change have been linked to the brain response to food, but it is unknown whether smoking influences this response. Objective: We determined the influence of smoking status (smokers compared with nonsmokers) on the brain response to food in regions associated with weight changes in nonsmokers. Design: In study 1, we used functional MRI (fMRI) to identify regions of the brain associated with weight change in nonsmokers. BMI and the brain response to a milk shake, which is a palatable and energy-dense food, were measured in a group of 27 nonsmokers (5 men). Sixteen subjects (3 men) returned 1 y later for BMI reassessment. The change in BMI was regressed against the brain response to isolate regions associated with weight change. In study 2, to determine whether smokers showed altered responses in regions associated with weight change, we assessed the brain response to a milk shake in 11 smokers. The brain response to a milk shake compared with a tasteless control solution was assessed in 11 smokers (5 men) in comparison with a group of age-, sex-and body weight-matched nonsmokers selected from the pool of nonsmokers who participated in study 1. Results: The response in the midbrain, hypothalamus, thalamus, and ventral striatum was positively associated with weight change at the 1-y follow-up in 16 nonsmokers. Compared with nonsmokers, smokers had a greater response to milk shakes in the hypothalamus. Conclusion: Smokers display an altered brain response to food in the hypothalamus, which is an area associated with long-term weight change in nonsmokers.Am J Clin Nutr 2013;97:15-22.

Introduction Anecdotal reports from patients with smell loss provided the basic motivation for the present study on sexual dysfunction among patients with olfactory dysfunction. The aim of the present study was to investigate the sexual appetite and the subject’s depression in regard to olfactory function. Methods Eighty-six patients referred to our smell and taste clinic with olfactory dysfunction were investigated. Olfactory function was assessed by means of the “Sniffin’ Sticks” test battery consisting of tests for odor threshold (T), odor discrimination (D), and odor identification (I). Their results were summed up to a composite score, the so-called “TDI score.” All participants completed a questionnaire including the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) and 11 questions for evaluation of the sexual appetite in regard to the time before the onset of olfactory dysfunction and since the olfactory dysfunction. The points received for the latter questions were summed up to the so called Sexual Appetite Index (SAI). Results Olfactory testing revealed that 38 patients were functionally anosmic, 39 patients were hyposmic, and nine patients were normosmic. The average BDI score was 11.0 ± 8.4 points. Evaluation of the SAI questionnaire revealed a significant decrease (P = 0.003) of the score from 22.7 ± 4.5 points from the time before to 21.4 ± 4.9 points since the onset of olfactory loss. No significant correlation was found between olfactory function and the SAI since the onset of olfactory dysfunction. However, the BDI score correlated negatively with the SAI since the onset of olfactory dysfunction (r85 = −0.36; P = 0.001). Conclusion The present study does not confirm the hypothesis that loss of olfactory function directly impacts on sexual appetite. It seems that depression caused by olfactory loss is the main cause for the self-reported decrease in sexual appetite as the onset of olfactory dysfunction.

The central complex selects and coordinates the species- and situation-specific song production in acoustically communicating grasshoppers. Control of sound production is mediated by several neurotransmitters and modulators, their receptors and intracellular signaling pathways. It has previously been shown that muscarinic cholinergic excitation in the central complex promotes sound production whereas both GABA and nitric oxide/cyclic GMP signaling suppress its performance. The present immunocytochemical and pharmacological study investigates the question whether GABA and nitric oxide mediate inhibition of sound production independently. Muscarinic ACh receptors are expressed by columnar output neurons of the central complex that innervate the lower division of the central body and terminate in the lateral accessory lobes. GABAergic tangential neurons that innervate the lower division of the central body arborize in close proximity of columnar neurons and thus may directly inhibit these central complex output neurons. A subset of these GABAergic tangential neurons accumulates cyclic GMP following the release of nitric oxide from neurites in the upper division of the central body. While sound production stimulated by muscarine injection into the central complex is suppressed by co-application of sodium nitroprusside, picrotoxin-stimulated singing was not affected by co-application of this nitric oxide donor, indicating that nitric oxide mediated inhibition requires functional GABA signaling. Hence, grasshopper sound production is controlled by processing of information in the lower division of the central body which is subject to modulation by nitric oxide released from neurons in the upper division.