COVID-19 patients often lose their sense of smell and taste. This is rare for a viral infection. At-home smell tests could be used as a screening tool and help slow the spread of the coronavirus.
Dogs have been constant companions to many during the COVID-19 pandemic.
NickyLloyd/E+ via Getty Images
Brains recognize a smell based on which cells fire, in what order – the same way you recognize a song based on its pattern of notes. How much can you change the ‘tune’ and still know the smell?
Geoffrey McKillop (front) with his partner Nicola Dallet McConaghie as they left the hospital where he was discharged after surviving coronavirus.
Liam McBurney/PA Images via Getty Images
Is it possible that people who recover from COVID-19 will be plagued with long term side effects from the infection? An infectious disease physician reviews the evidence so far.
Imagine being able to detect a smell from more than a kilometre away. Dogs can sniff out things from a greater distance than that.
A health worker carries out an olfactory test to monitor smell loss to a resident 65 km from Buenos Aires city, on May 24, 2020, amid the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic.
ALEJANDRO PAGNI/AFP via Getty Images
Many respiratory viruses cause us to temporarily lose our sense of smell. But SARS-CoV-2 isn’t like those other viruses. Researchers are now exploring how it differs and whether patients recover.
Cookies taste so good. Smell tells us that before we even take a bite. How?
Jennifer Pallian/Unsplash
Rakaia Kenney, University of Maryland, Baltimore County; Kayla Lemons, University of Maryland, Baltimore County, and Weihong Lin, University of Maryland, Baltimore County
Mmmmmmm. That smells delicious. Wait, how do you know that?
All of the senses have been affected by the coronavirus pandemic, not because the senses have changed, but because the world has, writes a sensory historian.
Patients who later test positive for COVID-19 are reporting early loss of smell and taste. Researchers are now trying to understand if this could be an early sign of the disease.
Anosmia is sometimes also a symptom with the common cold, another type of coronavirus.
Asier Romero/ Shutterstock
Different MR images help us unravel the mysteries of the brain. A diffusion MRI tractography reconstruction like this reveals the complicated wiring deep within a person’s brain.
Thijs Dhollander