Ipants. All subjects were informed that they were free to discontinue testing at any time. None of the participants had a reduced capacity/ability to understand the instructions of study and to give her/his consent. The capacity to consent to research of the patients was confirmed by a clinician. All subjects provided a written informed consent prior to testing. They were instructed not to smoke for at least 30?0 min before the study.General DesignPrior to the test session, all sensory tasks (evaluation of the odor parameters: pleasantness, familiarity, intensity, and their odor identification) were explained to the participant. Each subject assessed the hedonic aspect, the familiarity and the identification of single odors, before evaluating the odors’ intensity and identification in binary mixture. Sessions typically lasted for 25 to 30 minutes. The different tests were presented in the same order for all participants. For each task, the presentation order of the different stimuli was balanced across stimuli and was identical for all subjects. For all experiments, the solutions were made with distilled water (all odorants were soluble in this solvent at the studied concentrations). The odorous solutions were poured into 60 ml brown glass flasks (10 ml per flask). A three-digit random number coded each flask. Earlier experiments [22] showed that each individual optimizes the sniffing parameters to obtain his 
maximum sensitivity. Therefore, the time allowed for sniffing was not limited, but a minimum 30-second interval between samples was imposed in order to prevent 
olfactory adaptation.MethodsThe study was approved by the local ethical committee board (Ethics committee of Tours Ouest-1, France) and conducted in accordance with Good Clinical Practice procedures and the get EHop-016 current revision of the Declaration of Helsinki.ParticipantsEighteen inpatients were recruited consecutively upon admission to the psychiatric 15755315 ward while seeking treatment for MDE, which lasted more than 15 days. Detailed information of medical history was available in all the cases. Among patients in the depression group, 6 experienced their first episode, 4 their second, and 8 their third episode or more. Each patient was visited by a psychiatrist who made the diagnosis of MDE based on the DSMIV criteria and using the French version of the Mini International Neuropsychiatric Interview (MINI 5.0.0) [19,20]. The Montgom?ery-Asberg Depression Rating Scale (MADRS) [21] was used to assess the severity of depressive symptoms at inclusion (first visit: V1) and after 6 weeks of antidepressant treatment (second visit: V2, 4262 days after V1). Only patients with a MADRS score 28 at V1 were included in the study (mean MADRS score 35.164.5). We excluded patients with DSM-IV psychiatric comorbidity (i.e., psychosis, eating disorder or addiction). The E7449 web exclusion criteria for all participants comprised also possible brain damage, major medical problems, current substance abuse, allergies, a current cold or a problem with their sense of smell. All subjects were selected on the absence of anosmia to the odorants used in the present study. After 6 weeks of treatment all patients were clinically improved. Indeed, all of them improved significantly MADRS score (9.165.6) and 94 of patients had at least a 50 reduction in baseline MADRS total score. The reduction in the depression score from the first to the second visit (Wilcoxon signed test: V = 171.00, p,0.001) and differences between pa.Ipants. All subjects were informed that they were free to discontinue testing at any time. None of the participants had a reduced capacity/ability to understand the instructions of study and to give her/his consent. The capacity to consent to research of the patients was confirmed by a clinician. All subjects provided a written informed consent prior to testing. They were instructed not to smoke for at least 30?0 min before the study.General DesignPrior to the test session, all sensory tasks (evaluation of the odor parameters: pleasantness, familiarity, intensity, and their odor identification) were explained to the participant. Each subject assessed the hedonic aspect, the familiarity and the identification of single odors, before evaluating the odors’ intensity and identification in binary mixture. Sessions typically lasted for 25 to 30 minutes. The different tests were presented in the same order for all participants. For each task, the presentation order of the different stimuli was balanced across stimuli and was identical for all subjects. For all experiments, the solutions were made with distilled water (all odorants were soluble in this solvent at the studied concentrations). The odorous solutions were poured into 60 ml brown glass flasks (10 ml per flask). A three-digit random number coded each flask. Earlier experiments [22] showed that each individual optimizes the sniffing parameters to obtain his maximum sensitivity. Therefore, the time allowed for sniffing was not limited, but a minimum 30-second interval between samples was imposed in order to prevent olfactory adaptation.MethodsThe study was approved by the local ethical committee board (Ethics committee of Tours Ouest-1, France) and conducted in accordance with Good Clinical Practice procedures and the current revision of the Declaration of Helsinki.ParticipantsEighteen inpatients were recruited consecutively upon admission to the psychiatric 15755315 ward while seeking treatment for MDE, which lasted more than 15 days. Detailed information of medical history was available in all the cases. Among patients in the depression group, 6 experienced their first episode, 4 their second, and 8 their third episode or more. Each patient was visited by a psychiatrist who made the diagnosis of MDE based on the DSMIV criteria and using the French version of the Mini International Neuropsychiatric Interview (MINI 5.0.0) [19,20]. The Montgom?ery-Asberg Depression Rating Scale (MADRS) [21] was used to assess the severity of depressive symptoms at inclusion (first visit: V1) and after 6 weeks of antidepressant treatment (second visit: V2, 4262 days after V1). Only patients with a MADRS score 28 at V1 were included in the study (mean MADRS score 35.164.5). We excluded patients with DSM-IV psychiatric comorbidity (i.e., psychosis, eating disorder or addiction). The exclusion criteria for all participants comprised also possible brain damage, major medical problems, current substance abuse, allergies, a current cold or a problem with their sense of smell. All subjects were selected on the absence of anosmia to the odorants used in the present study. After 6 weeks of treatment all patients were clinically improved. Indeed, all of them improved significantly MADRS score (9.165.6) and 94 of patients had at least a 50 reduction in baseline MADRS total score. The reduction in the depression score from the first to the second visit (Wilcoxon signed test: V = 171.00, p,0.001) and differences between pa.