Olfactory Meta-Cognition in Anxiety and Depression: the Different Role of Common and Social Odors

Diminished olfactory functioning has been widely reported in depressive disorders, whereas evidence in anxiety disorders is still controversial. Along with olfactory functioning, olfactory meta-cognitive abilities (i.e., odor awareness, olfactory imagery and importance of odors) are essential in shaping olfaction. Surprisingly, very few studies examined these meta-cognitive abilities in relation to depressive, anxiety, and social anxiety symptoms, and none of them considered the awareness of social odors (i.e., body odors). This pre-registered study examined the relation between olfactory meta-cognitive abilities and depression, general anxiety, and social anxiety in 429 individuals. Self-report measures of depression, general anxiety, and social anxiety, along with self-report olfactory meta-cognitive scales, were collected using an online survey. Linear regression analyses revealed hat olfactory awareness and importance of odors were significantly directly predicted by anxiety but not by depressive scores. Olfactory imagery was predicted neither by anxiety nor by depressive symptoms. When looking specifically into social odors, higher depression and lower social anxiety predicted increased awareness. To summarize, the present findings did not confirm our hypotheses of reduced awareness for odors in depression, but add to the limited literature about anxiety disorders, corroborating the importance of olfactory function in anxiety. These data support the notion of a close relation between emotion and olfaction, while future studies are needed to disentangle the different role of common and social odors in depressive and anxiety symptoms as well as their importance in full-blown psychiatric conditions. The study is partially supported by the project POTION funding under Horizon 2020 FET programme. Funding Acknowledments: The present study is part of the POTION project that has received funding from the European Commission Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under grant agreement No. 824153. FCOI Declarations: None