Woman who first gained sense of smell at age 24 finds it disturbing

By Alice Klein

A woman who was born without the brain regions required for smell has mysteriously started smelling things for the first time in her twenties and finds it highly unpleasant.

The woman was diagnosed with congenital anosmia – the inability to smell – when she was 13. Brain imaging revealed she was missing the olfactory bulbs in her forebrain that detect odour information from the nose and transmit it to other parts of the brain involved in smell perception.

Then, when she …