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Hi Bill. Here goes: The ability to sense smells and to taste flavors are closely tied together in the brain center that receives sensory information from the tongue and nose.
Taste buds on the surface of the tongue send nerve impulses to the the brain's taste center. Sweet taste is recorded at the tip of the tongue; salty and sour taste is recorded at the sides of the tongue; bitter at the back.
In the nose there is a mucous membrane (olfactory epithelium) that contain nerve endings that detect odor. When airborne molecules containing various odors from flavanoids, gasses, oils, particles, etc., enter this area of the nose they stimulate tiny hairlike projections (cillia) on these nerve cells. These stimulations send impulases to the to bulb-like projection at the end of the olfactory nerve that relays the odor to the brain center to distinguish the odor.
Sense of smell can be altered if there are changes in the nose or nerves leading from nose to the brain center, like from a stuffy nose, flu, viral infection, cancer treatment, etc. Loss of taste is usually caused by conditions that affect the tongue (such as Bell's Palsey). Likewise, if there is trauma to the brain center that records smell/taste (car accident/seizure, etc) then the nerves become smell/taste nerve pathways are affected and sense of taste/smell becomre distorted.
The area of the nose that first responds to smells is located in the frontal area of the face ner the bridge of the nose, level to the eyes (high/front is more yin) and the area that first responds to taste is inside the mouth on the tongue (more yang position).
Taste signal goes first to back of lower brain (yang) then up to brain center at center of brain. Smell signal goes up first then to same brain center.
Sinusitis is an inflammation of the mucous membranes of the sinuses. The frontal sinuses are in the forehead just above smell center. The maxillary sinuses are in the cheek-bones on the side of the nose. The organisms that contribute to sinusitis spread to both pairs of sinuses. Once the sinuses become inflamed or blocked with excess mucus then cillia in nose becomes to damened to make proper stimulation and smell signal is blocked.
Many people with border-line personalites often exhibit certain forms of psychosis (hallucinations) that are olafactory in nature. Frequently the neurons that feed the taste/smell brain center are disturbed (excess neurotransmitter secretions, atrophy, virus, etc.) and they experience brief but vivid smell sensations -- that
may or may not be "real". Hallucinations are associated with the 5 physical senses and can be 1. visual (eyes) where you see things that are not there, 2. auditory (ears) where you think you hear voices, 3. tactile (feeling) where you think you are being touched, 4. olafactory (nose/smell) where you sense smells that are not there and 5. taste (tongue) where you experience heightened or diminished flavors. All of these sensations interact with each other in a physical way and are connected to the brain.
Here is an interesting case: Deafness runs in my family on the paternal side. I inherited this disorder as well. When I was 45
I went deaf in my right ear and then started to lose hearing in my left. Eventually hearing became very difficult and affected my home and work life in a negative way. Ineeded to have good hearing to continue my job as a bus operator. After much thinking I decided to have a stapedectomy. This is when you have the affected bone (stirup) in the ear canal removed and then replaced with a prosthesis (in this case a steel pin). Luckily I was able to find the doctor who developed this procedure. His name is Mendel Robinson and has international reputation as inventor of this procedure.
After this procedure (surgery) was performed my hearing was 95% restored in that ear. I was very grateful for this to happen. I could now hear my four-year old talking to me and my wife arguing with me! Oh joy to hear! Then I started to complain that my wife was making all food too salty. SHe decided not to use any salt for some time, but still it was salty. I thought she was playing a trick on me. ANyway I reasoned that it had something to do with the ear operation. I asked RObinson and he said yes, it was the ear operation. WHy? Because when they cut the stirrup bone they had to stretch one nerve that affects taste.
Therefore the right ear nerve controlled the salty taste.
Two years later I lost my hearing in the left ear and underwent the same procedure (now 100% restored). SHortly after I started to complain that my wife was using sweetners in the cooking. Even bancha tea! Of course she wasn't but I "imagined" (hallucinated) that she was because of the taste nerve being stretched from the second ear operation. I asked RObinson why is everything so sweet instead of salty this time.
He said because of the operation again but didn't know why the sweet taste was dominant. I try to reason that salty taste was controled by right ear and sweet by left ear. Then I started to research and found that tastes originate on tongue and this message is passed to lower brain via this nerve pathway that
bypasses the ear and then terminates in the center of the brain.
That's the best I can do. Too difficult to explain by yin/yang, if this is what you mean by "macrobiotic explanation."
In peace, Roy
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