生物与医学2019nature.com
狗能识别人类癫痫发作的气味
Dogs demonstrate the existence of an epileptic seizure odour in humans
入门 · 约 30 分钟读完前置知识：癫痫发作的基本类型、动物行为训练基础
导读
这篇论文研究人类癫痫发作是否会释放可被嗅觉识别的气味。研究者训练狗在多种癫痫发作样本中识别出统一的气味特征，证明发作时人体会产生一种跨患者一致的气味信号。这一发现为解释“预警犬”现象提供了科学依据，也可能启发新的发作检测手段。
HN 关注点：HN 读者长期听闻“癫痫预警犬”的传闻，这篇论文首次严格证实了发作气味确实存在，讨论焦点集中在气味背后的化学机制以及能否用机器替代狗来检测。
HN 评论精选
这几条评论里：质疑 1 补充 2 亲历 1
亲历以亲历者身份科普部分性发作的隐蔽症状，提醒读者癫痫不只有倒地抽搐一种表现
非常有意思。另外想提醒大家：癫痫发作并不总是影视里那种倒地抽搐的样子。几年前我开始出现一些症状，后来确诊为颞叶部分性发作：先是强烈的既视感，然后右臂从肩膀向手指发麻约一秒，接着脑中像被轻轻撞了一下，之后几分钟无法正常理解事物。我仍能思考，可以请谈话对象稍等片刻。有一次发作时正在读书，文字完全混在一起、字符乱序无法辨认，过了好一会儿才恢复。这类发作很难被意识到是癫痫，直到频率增加到一天一次我才重视。论文的受试者中就包含这种发作类型。是熟人提醒我这可能是癫痫发作，否则我不知道还要多久才能自己意识到。希望我的经历能帮到别人。
jackschultz查看英文原文
Super interesting. I also just want to note to people that seizures aren't always the kind that they're portrayed, with the person falling to the ground and shaking. Couple years ago I had these events start which turned out to be partial temporal lobe seizures. I would get a big flash of deja vu, my right arm would tingle starting at the shoulder and creep down to my fingers for about a second, and then I'd get hit with a tiny thump in my head where for the next few minutes I couldn't comprehend. I could still think, and I was able to tell people I was talking to to hold on, and give me a little time before we could start talking again. I had one while reading for example and the words got completely meshed together, where the characters were combined in different orders and didn't look understandable at all. I was wondering why the hell I couldn't read, and eventually the words started coming back together. The reason I'm saying this is that it took more a while to realize these are considered seizures. I didn't know what was going on and didn't think it was anything much until they started coming one a day and that thump getting a little bigger each time. This kind of seizure was listed in the paper as one of the test subjects. Someone I know was the one to tell me that those events might be a seizure, and I don't know how much longer it'd have been for me to come to that realization on my own. So maybe me saying this can help someone else. That, or get a dog that can smell seizures like in the paper!
补充补充背景：癫痫预警犬是已知现象，但训练效果不稳定且存在骗局
在癫痫患者或患儿家长中，讨论“癫痫犬”很常见：有的宠物或专门训练的狗能预测发作，有时提前一小时。这种现象确实存在但不算普遍。训练效果参差不齐，有的狗能学会有的不能。训练狗对正在发生的发作做出反应（比如跑去父母房间吠叫）要容易得多，也很有用。另外要当心有人声称能提供癫痫犬的骗局。
codeulike查看英文原文
Among people with epilepsy or who have children with epilepsy, its pretty common to hear discussion about 'seizure dogs'. These are either pets or specifically trained dogs that can predict when a seizure is going to happen, sometimes up to an hour before. They are somewhat rare but certainly a known phenomenon. Apparently the training is a bit hit and miss, some dogs can do it and some can't. Training a dog to react to a seizure that is actually happening right now is quite a lot easier, and still very useful (e.g. train it to run to parents room, barking). edit: also, one hears of scams where people claim to be able to provide seizure dogs but dont, so bear that in mind.
补充指出气味先于发作出现，暗示存在化学前兆，可能带来新的检测和治疗思路
发作前出现气味这一点很有意思，意味着体内可能有某种化学物质积累，这或许也暗示了新的检测、预防或治疗途径。
JoshTko查看英文原文
The fact that an odor precedes a seizure is interesting. Implies that there is some chemical buildup of some sort which also might suggest new ways of detection, prevention or treatment.
质疑提问：为什么电子鼻难以达到狗的嗅觉灵敏度
好奇有没有人知道，为什么我们造不出嗅觉像狗一样灵敏、能检测空气中颗粒物的机器？
thorgutierrez查看英文原文
I'm curious if anybody knows if there are good reasons why we can't or why it's hard to invent machines that could smell / detect particles in the air as well as dogs?
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