For nine years, a strong smell could be enough to send a 32-year-old teacher into a fit that looked and sounded like sneezing. On his worst day, he had 78 attacks, and a single episode could drag on for up to 10 minutes.
A smell setting off a sneeze is ordinary. What made this case unusual was what showed up when doctors recorded his muscles during an attack. Instead of the brief, coordinated burst of a typical sneeze, they captured a run of rapid jerks in his lower abdomen, a pattern that pointed to the brain's movement networks rather than the nose.
