The diminishment in the amount of cortical tissue happened to be in regions of the brain that are close to the places that are responsible for smell,” he said. “What it suggests is that, the smell, the loss of smell, is just an effect of a more primary process that’s underway, and that process is actually shrinking of cortical tissue.”
Disclosure: Scott Gottlieb is a CNBC contributor and is a member of the boards of Pfizer, genetic testing start-up Tempus, health-care tech company Aetion Inc. and biotech company Illumina.