Scientific Institute IRCCS "Eugenio Medea", Polo Regionale del Friuli Venezia Giulia, Via della Bontà, 7, 33078, San Vito Al Tagliamento, PN, Italy.
Clinical Neurology, Azienda Sanitaria Universitaria Friuli Centrale, Udine, Italy.
Sci Rep. 2022 May 5;12(1):7340. doi: 10.1038/s41598-022-11119-6.
Gustatory (GD) and olfactory (OD) dysfunctions are the most frequent neurological manifestations of COVID-19. We used mental imagery as an experimental psychological paradigm to access olfactory and gustatory brain representations in 80 Italian COVID-19 adult patients (68.75% reported both OD and GD). COVID-19 patients with OD + GD have a significantly and selectively decreased vividness of odor and taste imagery, indicating that COVID-19 has an effect on their chemosensory mental representations. OD + GD length and type influenced the status of mental chemosensory representations. OD + GD were become all COVID-19 negative at the time of testing. Data suggest that patients are not explicitly aware of long-term altered chemosensory processing. However, differences emerge when their chemosensory function is implicitly assessed using self-ratings. Among patients developing OD + GD, self-ratings of chemosensory function (taste, flavor) were significantly lower as compared to those who did not. At the level of mental representation, such differences can be further detected, in terms of a reduced ability to mentally activate an odor or taste mental image. Our study shows that COVID-19 infection not only frequently causes hyposmia and dysgeusia, but that may also alter the mental representations responsible for olfactory and gustatory perception.
味觉(GD)和嗅觉(OD)功能障碍是 COVID-19 最常见的神经系统表现。我们使用心理意象作为一种实验心理学范式,来评估 80 名意大利 COVID-19 成年患者(68.75%报告同时存在 OD 和 GD)的嗅觉和味觉大脑代表。同时存在 OD 和 GD 的 COVID-19 患者的气味和味觉意象生动性显著且选择性降低,这表明 COVID-19 对他们的化学感觉心理表象有影响。OD 和 GD 的长度和类型影响心理化学感觉表象的状态。在测试时,OD 和 GD 都变为所有 COVID-19 阴性。数据表明,患者并未明确意识到长期改变的化学感觉处理。然而,当使用自我评估来隐含地评估他们的化学感觉功能时,就会出现差异。在出现 OD 和 GD 的患者中,与未出现这些症状的患者相比,他们对化学感觉功能(味觉、味道)的自我评估明显较低。在心理表象层面,在心理激活气味或味道表象的能力降低方面,可以进一步检测到这种差异。我们的研究表明,COVID-19 感染不仅经常导致嗅觉减退和味觉障碍,而且可能改变负责嗅觉和味觉感知的心理表象。