Olfaction News and Research

RSS

Dissecting how co-transmission of interneurons helps in odor detection and discrimination

A longstanding hypothesis in neurobiology was that a single neuron releases a single type of neurotransmitter, a molecule used by neurons to communicate with one another.

28 Nov 2023

Investigating the neurological effects of SARS-CoV-2: anosmia and neuroinvasion as separate phenomena

A group of researchers investigated the neurotropic potential of SARS-CoV-2 and its variants by studying their ability to invade the brain through the olfactory pathway in hamsters.

1 Aug 2023

Study links poor sense of smell with increased risk of depression in older adults

In a study that followed more than 2,000 community-dwelling older adults over eight years, researchers at Johns Hopkins Medicine say they have significant new evidence of a link between decreased sense of smell and risk of developing late-life depression.

26 Jun 2023

Five-minute test for olfaction may also help doctors to screen for depression

A five-minute test commonly used to evaluate olfactory function (sense of smell) could also help doctors screen for depression, according to new research out of King George's Medical University, India.

21 Apr 2023

Is there an association between body mass index and cognitive function in older adults?

Researchers examined whether body mass index was associated with cognitive performance in older adults.

10 Apr 2023

Ants show the potential to become a fast, efficient, inexpensive, and non-invasive tool for the detection of human tumors

Researchers demonstrated the use of ants as olfactory bio-detectors of human tumors.

31 Jan 2023

Does bimodal visual-olfactory training with patient-preferred scents improve olfaction in individuals with COVID-19 postviral olfactory loss?

Researchers investigated whether using patient-preferred scents and a bimodal method of visual-olfactory training is more effective than unimodal olfactory training using scents assigned by physicians in treating patients experiencing anosmia after COVID-19.

5 Jan 2023

What is the effect of the Omicron variant on olfaction?

A new study discusses the effect of the Omicron variant of the virus on the olfactory system in humans.

15 Sep 2022

The role of nasal microbiome in Parkinson's disease

A recent study provides an overview of how the nasal bacterial population influences olfactory processing and neurodegeneration.

5 Sep 2022

Study suggests loss of smell and brain inflammation are independent in COVID-19

Researchers assessed the association between neuroinvasion and anosmia observed during COVID-19.

5 Sep 2022

GnRH therapy could improve cognitive deficits in men with Down syndrome

Gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) therapy improves cognitive function in Down syndrome (DS) mouse models and male patients with DS, according to a new study.

1 Sep 2022

Investigating the missing link between COVID-19 and anosmia

A new study evaluated how SARS-CoV-2 infection leads to anosmia via chromatin structure disruption and OR dysregulation. For this purpose, publicly available Hi-C data of OSNs of SARS-CoV-2-infected and control human subjects were used.

23 Aug 2022

Study reveals the unique and unconventional way mosquitoes process odors

If you've ever sprayed yourself head to toe in bug repellent, yet still felt like a mosquito magnet, it will come as no shock to you that mosquitoes are very, very good at finding humans to bite.

19 Aug 2022

Johns Hopkins Medicine researchers challenge the prevailing belief on how nasal cells process scent

Johns Hopkins Medicine researchers say they have evidence to potentially overturn a prevailing belief in a type of important signaling within cells.

18 Aug 2022

Sniffing out cancer with insect olfactory neural circuits

A fascinating new preprint reports the results of examining the VOC composition from individual cell cultures derived from human oral cancers, using an experimental setup employing an insect brain with attached antenna.

11 Aug 2022

Locusts can differentiate between cancer cells and healthy cells, research shows

Researchers at Michigan State University have shown that locusts can not only "smell" the difference between cancer cells and healthy cells, but they can also distinguish between different cancer cell lines.

5 Aug 2022

3D models of cranial endocasts help better understand brain evolution of lungfishes

The evolution of the brain and nervous system in animals has been wound back more than 400 million years, thanks to the examination of fossil remains of ancient lungfish providing a missing link in the emergence of land-living, four-legged animals on Earth.

12 Jul 2022