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SCIENCE SOURCENEUROTECHAroma
Therapy
A cochlear implant–like device
could one day restore smellWhen Scott Moorehead tells people he
cannot smell, they usually make a joke
about how lucky he is—he must not be
troubled by dirty diapers or people passing
gas. “All the jokes are hilarious,” Moore-
head says, with a hint of sarcasm. But his
lack of smell also means he is vulnerable
to natural gas leaks and burning food. He
is self-conscious about his own scent, so
he takes extra showers. And he has had to
give up one of his favorite hobbies: match-
ing wines with exotic flavors.
After a concussion left Moorehead
without a sense of smell six years ago,
these losses were all he could think about.
“Just knowing that I was never going to
be able to smell my wife again or my kids”
was hard to cope with, he says.
Although the nerves that control smell
can often regrow after an injury—they
are some of the only neurons known to
rapidly replace themselves—Moorehead’s
lesion was too severe. He now has anosmia,
which means his sense of smell is gone.
But he is participating in a nascent effort
at the Virginia Commonwealth University
(VCU) School of Medicine and Harvard
Medical School to develop a partially© 2019 Scientific American © 2019 Scientific American