From smell kits to a nose implant, how researchers are trying to help anosmics regain their sense of smell | CBC Radio
The Current23:29Some Canadians proceed to grapple with a lack of scent — what restoration choices are being labored on?
Everything appeared regular when Kerri Wall returned from a mountain biking journey in May 2018 — till she smelled her sweaty shirt.
“I thought, oh, it’s fine. I can wear it again tomorrow,” she advised The Current‘s Matt Galloway.
“The next day, I went riding again, got pretty sweaty, came home, took off my shirt. I didn’t smell it.… Jumped in the shower and couldn’t smell the soap, couldn’t smell the shampoo, and I got super concerned.”
Wall, who lives in Fernie, B.C., anticipated her sense of scent to return eventually, on condition that she was “generally a super healthy person.” But 4 and a half years after dropping her sense of scent, it hasn’t returned.
“I could no longer smell or taste any of my own body smells,” she stated. “Like, I no longer kind of felt like a mammal in that way.”
She described it as “a very alien feeling.”
“I felt really, like, not human.”
Wall is amongst a lot of Canadians who’re anosmic: individuals who have misplaced their sense of scent, both partially or utterly.
It’s one of many side-effects of contracting COVID-19, however some folks, like Wall, really misplaced their sense of scent effectively earlier than the pandemic.
Still, scientific curiosity in COVID-19 has boosted analysis for anosmia, and quite a lot of options have gotten extra mainstream.
“I think that COVID is making a lot of us feel hopeful, that people are paying attention and doing more research,” Wall stated.
“I don’t really have much hope that anything will change in my lifetime, but I would love it if other people didn’t have to live with this.”
Trying to achieve a greater understanding
It’s not at all times clear what causes anosmia. In Wall’s case, she stated she noticed a nostril and ear specialist, and had CT scans and MRIs to search out out what brought about her lack of scent.
“All the scans and all the examinations came back … quote-unquote normal, and so they just said, ‘OK, well, you’re good,'” she stated. “I did not feel good, but they could not identify any medical issues.”
Dr. Leigh Sowerby, an assistant professor within the division of otolaryngology at Western University in London, Ont., commonly treats anosmic sufferers.
He stated sufferers could be broadly damaged down into three classes: post-traumatic, which suggests they’ve skilled head trauma and misplaced their sense of scent afterwards; post-viral, which is attributable to a virus; and idiopathic, the place the trigger is unknown.
“Kerri’s … maybe post-viral, but more likely idiopathic, because she didn’t have a clear viral program before she had her loss of smell,” Sowerby advised Galloway.
Sowerby stated COVID-19 has garnered extra consideration for olfactory dysfunction. This has led to the emergence of teams just like the Global Consortium for Chemosensory Research, which conducts scientific research to evaluate the potential relationships between respiratory diseases like COVID-19 and the frequent chilly, and their results on scent.
“There’s about 700 researchers around the world that are part of this group that’s really becoming an international collaborative effort to try and improve our treatment therapies,” he stated.
Smell coaching
Although there aren’t any concrete, all-in-one options, Sowerby stated analysis has discovered some potential restoration strategies for scent loss, equivalent to olfactory coaching, additionally known as scent coaching.
I attempt to bear in mind, what does lemon scent like? What does lemon style like? And I inhale it and, , you attempt to get a scent.— Kerri Wall
This is likely one of the strategies Wall tried. Her scent coaching package got here with important oils that smelled like lavender, spearmint, clove and cedar, however she was additionally really helpful to scent lemons.
“You practise trying to visualize [the smell],” she stated. “I try to remember, what does lemon smell like? What does lemon taste like? And I inhale it and, you know, you try to get a smell.”
For now, Wall hasn’t observed any change.
“People do say it sometimes can help,” she stated. “So I do kind of persist, although I don’t think anything’s going to change.”
LISTEN | How a restaurant critic educated her nostril to scent once more:
As It Happens6:36Lemons, spices and bitter milk: How a restaurant critic educated her nostril to scent once more
When New York Times restaurant critic Tejal Rao misplaced her sense of scent after getting COVID-19 in December 2020, she used a way known as scent coaching to get it again.
Nose implants sooner or later?
Richard Costanzo, a physiologist at Virginia Commonwealth University, understands Wall’s frustration. As co-founder of the Smell and Taste Disorders Centre, he is heard anosmic sufferers like Wall battle to discover a answer for years.
That’s why he and his group are engaged on a bionic nostril implant for folks with anosmia to make use of.
It’s “not a new idea,” Costanzo advised Galloway. “We’ve been doing this for years for people who lose their hearing: cochlear implants, which is a device [that] stimulates the ear and produces sound.”
For a few decade, Costanzo and his group have developed prototypes of their bionic nostril implant of their lab. He stated the most recent prototype encompass three elements.
“There’s a sensor system that picks up odours and then encodes them into computer language. They call them odour fingerprints,” he stated. “Then the computer stimulates different parts of the brain to generate perceptions of smell, whether they’re good perceptions or bad perceptions — and ends on the brain stimulation.”
Eventually, I do consider that we can encode odours … after which match it as much as the patterns that we have to stimulate within the mind to provide helpful perceptions.— Richard Costanzo
These prototypes aren’t obtainable for public use — the know-how has a option to go earlier than that. But Costanzo stated he envisions the primary model of those bionic noses to be wearable on a set of glasses.
“You could have a small sensing probe that is attached to a small microcomputer on the side of the glasses,” he stated. “Just like a cochlear implant, the computer information would then be transferred into the brain through radio waves.”
In this fashion, “we would target specific parts of the brain to generate the perception of that odour.”
‘Encoding’ odours
Costanzo is conscious that it is simpler stated than executed.
He makes it clear that the prototype just isn’t at a degree the place a bionic nostril may help folks with anosmia scent once more. For now, the researchers are nonetheless making an attempt to determine with certainty the place odour perceptions are generated within the mind.
LISTEN: The Current listeners share their experiences dropping their sense of scent:
The Current5:49Listeners tells us about their experiences dropping their sense of scent
Listeners to The Current share their very own experiences of dropping their sense of scent — and a number of the smells they miss.
If cochlear implants are something to go by, the primary publicly obtainable bionic noses won’t be probably the most technologically superior implants.
“The first cochlear implants implants just created a buzz, a sound alert that there was something out there in the environment,” Costanzo stated.
“So it’s possible that our early [bionic nose] prototypes will just simply alert you to dangers or something important, with respect to the sense of smell or your environment.”
Nonetheless, Costanzo thinks it is potential the bigger concept will come to life.
“Eventually, I do believe that we will be able to encode odours … and then match it up to the patterns that we need to stimulate in the brain to produce useful perceptions.”
Produced by Alison Masemann.
