Book contents
- A Tattoo on My Brain
- Reviews
- A Tattoo on My Brain
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Prologue
- 1 Beacon Rock
- 2 Forewarned and Forearmed
- 3 The Smell of Baking Bread
- 4 Sneak Preview
- 5 A Stubborn Puzzle
- 6 The Locked Box and the Family Tree
- 7 The Measure of Memory
- 8 Orcas Nonetheless
- 9 My Brain, My Self
- 10 The Reveal
- 11 Cognitive Reserve and Resiliency: Brain Cells in the Bank
- 12 My Experimental Life
- 13 When ARIA Is More than an Operatic Solo
- 14 My Experiential Life: Living with Early-Stage Alzheimer’s Disease
- 15 Madeleines, Music and African Doves
- 16 It’s Only Scary If You Look Down
- 17 Beyond DNA: Family History Reconsidered
- 18 News at 5: Retired Neurologist Battles Alzheimer’s
- 19 The Forest, the Trees and the Ground Beneath My Feet
- 20 What’s in a Name? Alzheimer’s Reimagined
- 21 A Meaningful Outcome
- Epilogue: The Writing Life
- Epilogue: The Writing Life, Act II
- Appendix:
- Resources
- Index
- References
3 - The Smell of Baking Bread
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 November 2022
- A Tattoo on My Brain
- Reviews
- A Tattoo on My Brain
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Prologue
- 1 Beacon Rock
- 2 Forewarned and Forearmed
- 3 The Smell of Baking Bread
- 4 Sneak Preview
- 5 A Stubborn Puzzle
- 6 The Locked Box and the Family Tree
- 7 The Measure of Memory
- 8 Orcas Nonetheless
- 9 My Brain, My Self
- 10 The Reveal
- 11 Cognitive Reserve and Resiliency: Brain Cells in the Bank
- 12 My Experimental Life
- 13 When ARIA Is More than an Operatic Solo
- 14 My Experiential Life: Living with Early-Stage Alzheimer’s Disease
- 15 Madeleines, Music and African Doves
- 16 It’s Only Scary If You Look Down
- 17 Beyond DNA: Family History Reconsidered
- 18 News at 5: Retired Neurologist Battles Alzheimer’s
- 19 The Forest, the Trees and the Ground Beneath My Feet
- 20 What’s in a Name? Alzheimer’s Reimagined
- 21 A Meaningful Outcome
- Epilogue: The Writing Life
- Epilogue: The Writing Life, Act II
- Appendix:
- Resources
- Index
- References
Summary
It was a summer day in 2006 when I first noticed that there might be a problem with my ability to smell. Lois and I were walking the dog when we passed some beautiful roses. I leaned over to smell them, but there was hardly any smell. I said to Lois that as beautiful as these roses were, they didn’t seem to have much of a scent. Some varieties of roses are like that. Then Lois stepped over, took a sniff and had no trouble getting the usual olfactory treat. The problem wasn’t the roses. I didn’t think much about it until a year later when I suddenly began experiencing intrusive smells that didn’t seem to have any origin in the real world. The smell was always the same: like a mixture of baking bread and perfume. It would occur seemingly out of nowhere and last from a few minutes up to an hour.
These false odors are called phantosmias – a kind of olfactory hallucination. In the medical literature, phantosmias are usually associated with decreased ability to smell. It’s as though the brain is inventing a smell to replace the one it can no longer detect.
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- Chapter
- Information
- A Tattoo on my BrainA Neurologist's Personal Battle against Alzheimer's Disease, pp. 24 - 28Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2023