Dogs are awesome (AFP Photo/Astrid Stawiarz) |
Paris (AFP) - Dogs can use their remarkable sense of smell to recognise the specific scent of seizures, researchers said Thursday, raising hope that canine carers could one day protect sufferers before a fit takes hold.
Previous
tests have shown dogs are able to detect the odours of certain diseases,
including some cancers, diabetes and malaria.
There is
also anecdotal evidence they can sense that their owner may be about to have a
seizure, though this was poorly understood until now.
Researchers
in France used five dogs -- Casey, Dodger, Lana, Zoey and Roo -- in a study to
sniff out a scent specifically linked to a human seizure.
Dogs' noses
have evolved to be highly sensitive, and can detect specific organic
compounds
at a concentration of less than 0.001 part per billion (AFP Photo/OLI SCARFF)
|
They
presented the dogs with a variety of smells taken from epileptic patients,
including body odours emitted during calm activity, while exercising, and during
an attack.
Casey,
Dodger and Zoey all identified the seizure scent 100 percent of the time, while
Lana and Roo sniffed out the right sample two goes out of three.
"The
results went beyond our expectations by showing that there is indeed a general
odour of an epileptic seizure," Amelie Catala, a researcher at the
University of Rennes and lead study author, told AFP.
"We
hope it will open new lines of research that could help anticipate seizures and
thus get patients to seek security."
Dogs' noses have evolved to be highly sensitive, and can detect specific organic compounds at a concentration of less than 0.001 part per billion.
Dogs are
awesome (AFP Photo/Astrid Stawiarz)
|
Dogs' noses have evolved to be highly sensitive, and can detect specific organic compounds at a concentration of less than 0.001 part per billion.
The most
sophisticated current "electronic noses", meant to pick up
potentially harmful odours that humans can't smell, have a detection threshold
of around 300 parts per billion.
Catala said
that while dogs had been shown previously to be able to sniff out chronic
diseases, this experiment showed they could potentially diagnose acute health
episodes that last just a few minutes.
"The
study of odours by the use of dogs constitutes a fast, low-cost, non-invasive,
and effective screening method of diseases that can be difficult to identify normally,"
she said.
The paper
was published in the journal Nature Scientific Reports.
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