论文标题：Dogs demonstrate the existence of an epileptic seizure odour in humans

期刊：Scientific Reports

作者：Amélie Catala, Marine Grandgeorge, Jean-Luc Schaff, Hugo Cousillas, Martine Hausberger, Jennifer Cattet

发表时间：2019/03/28

数字识别码： 10.1038/s41598-019-40721-4

原文链接：http://t.cn/EJr1Ywu

微信链接：https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/ZvQhVhO8HrWHsicjCJG9eA

《科学报告》发表的一项小型研究Dogs demonstrate the existence of an epileptic seizure odour in humans指出，狗或能鉴别与癫痫发作有关的一种特定人体气味。这一初步研究结果表明，癫痫发作的气味特征有望将来用于癫痫发作的预测。

图1 图源： Pixabay

此前研究显示，乳腺癌或肺癌这类疾病与身体气味的特定变化有相关性。然而，由于癫痫发作具有个体特异性和高度多样性，气味特征是否也能反映癫痫发作的可能性从未得到测试。

法国国家科学研究中心、诺曼底大学、雷恩第一大学的Amélie Catala和同事让经过训练的三个母犬和两只公犬接触了各种复杂气味（呼吸和身体气味），这些气味分别采集自癫痫患者的发作期间、不发作期间以及运动锻炼之后。每只狗都参与了九次实验，每次实验都会有七个罐头，但只有一个罐头装有癫痫发作的气味。这些狗识别阳性（敏感性）的能力范围为67%-100%，正确识别阴性（特异性）的能力范围为95%-100%。

图2：对每种气味的平均探索时间（秒）。图源：Catala等

结果表明，虽然癫痫发作和个体气味具有多样性，但癫痫发作与特定气味特征有关。这些气味特征有望用来预测癫痫发作，以便患者提前找到一个更安全的环境。不过，仍需开展进一步研究才能确定癫痫发作气味的化学特性，以及这些气味是否会在发作前出现。

摘要：Although different studies have shown that diseases such as breast or lung cancer are associated with specific bodily odours, no study has yet tested the possibility that epileptic seizures may be reflected in an olfactory profile, probably because there is a large variety of seizure types. The question is whether a “seizure-odour”, that would be transversal to individuals and types of seizures, exists. This would be a pre requisite for potential anticipation, either by electronic systems (e.g., e-noses) or trained dogs. The aim of the present study therefore was to test whether trained dogs, as demonstrated for cancer or diabetes, may discriminate a general epileptic seizure odor (different from body odours of the same person in other contexts and common to different persons). The results were very clear: all dogs discriminated the seizure odour. The sensitivity and specificity obtained were amongst the highest shown up to now for discrimination of diseases. This constitutes a first proof that, despite the variety of seizures and individual odours, seizures are associated with olfactory characteristics. These results open a large field of research on the odour signature of seizures. Further studies will aim to look at potential applications in terms of anticipation of seizures.

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期刊介绍：Scientific Reports (https://www.nature.com/srep/) is an online, open access journal from the publishers of Nature. We publish scientifically valid primary research from all areas of the natural and clinical sciences.

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（来源：科学网）