OECs - Olfactory Ensheathing Cells Help Paralyzed Man Walk

Removing one of the patient's olfactory bulbs before transplanting cultured cells into the spinal cord ...

Specialist olfactory ensheathing cells (OECs), which form part of the sense of smell, were used in the treatment as they are pathway cells, enabling nearby nerve fibres to be continually regenerated.     
Source: AFP

Darek Fidyka was paralysed from the chest down following a knife attack in 2010, but can now walk using a frame after receiving treatment in which nerve cells from his nose were transplanted into his severed spinal column, according to research published in the journal Cell Transplantation on Tuesday.
  
"When there's nothing, you can't feel almost half of your body. You're helpless, lost," the patient, who is now recovering at the Akron Neuro-Rehabilitation Center in Wroclaw, told BBC's Panorama programme.
  
"When it begins to come back, you feel you've started your life all over again, as if you are reborn. It's an incredible feeling, difficult to describe," he said.
  
Specialist olfactory ensheathing cells (OECs), which form part of the sense of smell, were used in the treatment as they are pathway cells, enabling nearby nerve fibres to be continually regenerated.
  
Pawel Tabakow, consultant neurosurgeon at Wroclaw University, led a team of surgeons in removing one of the patient's olfactory bulbs before transplanting cultured cells into the spinal cord.
  
Scientists think that the cells, implanted above and below the injury, enabled damaged fibres to reconnect.
  
"What we've done is establish a principle, nerve fibres can grow back and restore function, provided we give them a bridge," explained Geoff Raisman, chair of neural regeneration at University College London's Institute of Neurology, who led the British research team working on the joint project.
  
"To me, this is more impressive than a man walking on the moon. I believe this is the moment when paralysis can be reversed."
  
Tabakow said it was "amazing to see how regeneration of the spinal cord, something that was thought impossible for many years, is becoming a reality".
  
Scientists now plan to hold clinical trials on 10 patients in Britain and Poland.

Fan and Lace

I receive a gift of a fan and lace from someone moving out of town, reminded of lace fans while watching Gran Hotel with its evocative soundtrack and beautiful lace pieces in the costuming of 1905-7 Spain.

Rubbed oils of coffee and neroli into the fan - stay cool in scented style.


Photo: Fan and Lace Lura Astor

ambrosia

Anoint your nasal brain/nostrils with ambrosia

which will it be

Illustration:  Lura Astor Bottle Series

I liked to call him Sean, his Irish name. It's a very masculine name, like him. He drank a lot and his pipe was part of him.

It reminded me of the way Father's jacket smelled. He was one of the extraordinary people my career gave me the opportunity to meet and know.

- Katharine Hepburn on director John Ford

I Know Where I'm Going: Katharine Hepburn, A Personal Biography by Charlotte Chandler

Flowers of Sleep

Flowers of Sleep

a phrase in Bali

meaning

Dreams







photo: Garden Eels in Water haplochromis

cook up something artful

Martin smiled. “Yes, well, life is short and art is long. Perhaps we can cook up something artful.”

The Orchid Thief, Susan Orlean

Salepi, sahlep, sahlab is a powder made from the root of an orchid plant, used in this Pagoto Kaimaki recipe, an orchid ice cream using gum mastic click here

That Smell - Can You Smell Your Self? The Peptides are Turning

 







Science shows that people recognize their own scent based on their combination of major histocompatibility complex (MHC) proteins. While we may not be able to pick our fingerprints out, our brain knows what we smell like.

Studies also reveal that individuals prefer different smells on others than they prefer on themselves, distinguishing between self and non-self.

Magnetic resonance imaging measures changes in our brains responding to smells of self and non-self peptides and scents amplify the natural aromas of different MHC types.

The Turning of the PepTides

So it seems that we choose scents that amplify our own MHC peptides and favor perfumes/scents on another that amplify a non-self MHC type. 

Research continues to identify which receptors in the nose sense MHC proteins. And the physiology of our complete smell package, including our microbiomes, the collection of microbes living in and on us, will help identify body odor preferences.

Can You Smell Yourself? Sarah C. P. Williams, 22 January 2013 click here for link

That Smell    - Lynard Skynard

Whiskey bottles, and brand new cars
Oak tree you're in my way
There's too much coke and too much smoke
Look what's going on inside you
Ooooh that smell
Can't you smell that smell
Ooooh that smell
The smell of death surrounds you

Angel of darkness is upon you
Stuck a needle in your arm
So take another toke, have a blow for your nose
One more drink fool, will drown you
Ooooh that smell
Can't you smell that smell
Ooooh that smell
The smell of death surrounds you

Now they call you Prince Charming
Can't speak a word when you're full of 'ludes
Say you'll be all right come tomorrow
But tomorrow might not be here for you
Ooooh that smell
Can't you smell that smell
Ooooh that smell
The smell of death surrounds you

Hey, you're a fool you
Stick them needles in your arm
I know I been there before

One little problem that confronts you
Got a monkey on your back
Just one more fix, Lord might do the trick
One hell of a price for you to get your kicks
Ooooh that smell
Can't you smell that smell
Ooooh that smell
The smell of death surrounds you
Ooooh that smell
Can't you smell that smell
Ooooh that smell
The smell of death surrounds you

humor in perfume marketing

click to read the likes and dislikes

Quiet

reading smell
quiet 

Scent and Color

In Brave New World, Aldous Huxley imagined a future where people would go to concerts to experience "scent and color" instruments where each note transmitted enticing smells of sandalwood and other perfumes and projected pictures on the ceiling. 

- from Color: A Natural History of the Palette, Victoria Finlay

on this site search Synasthesia, Scent Aria for related articles

 




photo: Brown Texture Lura Astor

I liked the smell ...

A well-known writer got collared by a university student who asked, "Do you think I could be a writer?"

"Well," the writer said, "I don't know .... Do you like sentences?"

The writer could see the student's amazement. 

Sentences? Do I like sentences? I am twenty years old and do I like sentences? If he had liked sentences, of course, he could begin, like a joyful painter I knew. I asked him how he came to be a painter. He said, "I liked the smell of the paint."

- Annie Dillard, The Writing Life

Palette: by Lura Astor

a good recipe ... includes generosity, sensuality, surprise

"Today, 60 basic ingredients constitute 80 percent of all fragrance formulas.

....Of course, I can create perfumes in the classical manner, or in the baroque, narrative, figurative, abstract, minimalist, and so forth. But above all, I believe that all fragrances should have form, distinction, imagination, generosity, sensuality, and surprise so that perfume is not simply reduced to a product, an object, or a commodity."

-Jean-Claude Ellena

with a lovely fragrance creation history, currently the exclusive in-house perfumer for Hermès, from his book Perfume: The Alchemy of Scent 2011

When I think of the number of words used in daily communication,
the number of ingredients needed to make a fine meal,
it makes sense that it's how we use ingredients
in a fragrance formula
in order to capture perceptions.


assemblage: Put the Fizz In detail Lura Astor

Love Ya Would Want to Smell Ya

Love ya

would want to smell ya

my remix of Love ya, wouldn't want to smell ya.


painting: Perfume of Desire  Lura Astor

Nature - and Another Thing

continuing from my previous post

Many Medications Affect Our Sense of Smell.

When our sense of smell is out of equilibrium so is part of our own balance.

Affecting smell? Definitely birth control, hormonal medications (search on this site). Definitely anti-depressants, anti-anxiety and weight loss medications, viagra, steroids. People who care-take see the symptoms first hand.

For years I've used performance and teaching skills to increase my ability to guide people how to smell and analyze smell more - for lay people, not for industry standards. I use art points of view. Also, I smell in color and until a few years ago assumed every body does. I've since learned that people smell in a variety of ways including: in a fog, in textures, in zones, analytically in numbers.

I look forward to more people accessing this sense in ways that enhance their life, beyond cliché.


photo: pill head, common use

Definition of Nature in Scent World - Up For Grabs

 







2 October 2012, I write:

Completing a questionnaire on Trends in Scent in North America I realize the definition of Nature is up for grabs.

Regarding regulatory increases and concern of allergens:
I am not a scientist, do not know the effects of:
human tissue in vaccines
genetically modified seeds in source material
chemical spray on materials used
and other factors. 

I am not a “use only naturals in perfumery” advocate. And, I don’t know the geo-politics of regulations in this industry.

I do know that when my country announced a war with Iraq and Afghanistan that many were returning missing limbs. I voiced that with the money in bio-technology and computer prosthetics that we will see a Bionics Olympics with huge leaps and faster race times due to longer, bouncier strides. Acrobatics will take a new twist and new sports will develop. Years later Para-Olympics comes into its own.

As a kid, I came home from elementary school and told my mother the teacher had told us that war is good for science, medical innovation, and for quickly producing doctors. Mom flipped a lid and proceeded to educate me on analytical thinking, how peace is magnificent for science, technology, medicine, and arts. She continued teaching me how to hold my own during sweeping generalizations, to use discernment and to research, read, read more, write, and analyze. She taught us to give credit to people while they are living. She thought posthumous accolades are ridiculous, and a backwards thinking money-maker.

We continue to define Nature. From centuries of "we must control Nature or it will control us" -to- analysis of Nature and Nurture -or- programming, to there remains an equilibrium within Nature and it teaches we are a part of it. 

In view of the long clock of now, nature and we evolve, slowly it seems, slowly, longly. And we define, redefine, and maybe even refine.

photo: detail from Smell Installation Lura Astor

2012

painting: brush stroke Lura Astor

A Year of Smells ...

Wishing you 
a New Year 
Full of
New Smells

photo: WindSculpture Lura Astor

Scent Categorization

... we each must figure out how we categorize smells
and even categorize
how our interpretations can fluctuate and be influenced.

- Lura Astor click here

The following is from
the long awaited book
Perfume: The Alchemy of Scent

by Jean-Claude Ellena

Perfumer at Hermès 

"In order to judge perfumes that have outlasted time I use today's nose, whereas for new perfumes I use yesterday's nose. 

And I realize that memory works in such a way that perfumes, which are not experienced with excitement and passion, which are not linked with a personal story or, in our business, with the training of the nose, are devoid of meaning and leave no trace in the memory. I thus conclude that evaluation by categories, by classification, is not enough for me. This perception of perfume is too analytical, too distanced, to move me. In order to discover a perfume, I have to enter into it and grasp it from the inside. Once it is separated from its external apparel, I can appraise, judge and decide.

I also notice that my perception, my understanding, and my judgements of perfumes have evolved with the ideas, the values, the customs, and the tastes of society, and that the mental picture I have of perfumes has constantly altered and become richer. This means that I am constantly reinventing my representation of the past - the past that builds my future creations."


Illustration: Heart of the Matter Lura Astor

Sea Smells See Smells

Breathe deeply, and you remember that smell for the rest of your life, the bold, fecund aroma of the tidal marsh, exquisite and sensual, the smell of the South in heat, a smell like new milk, semen, and spilled wine, all perfumed with seawater.

- Pat Conroy The Prince of Tides

Growing up in New England there was a brisk, wake-you-up, salt-bite to any sea inhale. A coast away in California, the ocean scent is truly Pacific, not as stinging, more lulling.

photo: Ocean Rope Lura Astor

We Smell What We See?

 “They hear what they see.”

Bobby Darin as quoted in Dodd Darin's book, Dream Lovers: The Magnificent Shattered Lives of Bobby Darin and Sandra Dee by Their Son. Darin advises to always be a sharp dresser as a performer, and addresses his desire to stretch his musical range, not just be seen as Bobby Darin thus Mack the Knife et al.

I have a sense that people smell what they see.

 
Packaging, adverts, color choices, point of sale, all enter our perception field and affect how we interpret what we smell.

To get into the depths of interpreting smell, we each must figure out how we categorize smells and how our category interpretations can

fluctuate and be influenced.

Petal Fireworks Lura Astor