Smell your self: Olfactory stimulation improves self-concept in Alzheimer’s disease

Abstract

ABSTRACT Research has demonstrated a link between decline in autobiographical memory and decline in the sense of self in Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Recent work has also shown that odour is a powerful cue to alleviate decline in autobiographical memory in AD. Based on these findings, we investigated whether odour exposure improves access to self-concept in AD patients. To this end, we invited AD and control participants to make self-related statements (i.e., statements in response to the question “Who am I?”) after odour exposure or without odour exposure. We measured the number and the categories of self-related statements (i.e., whether these statements described the psychological, social or physical self) that were generated in each condition. Results demonstrated that both AD and control participants generated more self-statements in the odour condition than in the odor-free condition, especially psychological self-statements. This study is the first to demonstrate the positive influence of olfactory stimulation on the retrieval of self-related knowledge in AD.