Brain-Machine Interface Systems Lab, Miguel Hernandez University of Elche, 03202 Elche, Spain.
Engineering Research Institute of Elche-I3E, Miguel Hernandez University of Elche, 03202 Elche, Spain.
Sensors (Basel). 2023 Jun 25;23(13):5880. doi: 10.3390/s23135880.
A new pandemic was declared at the end of 2019 because of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). One of the effects of COVID-19 infection is anosmia (i.e., a loss of smell). Unfortunately, this olfactory dysfunction is persistent in around 5% of the world's population, and there is not an effective treatment for it yet. The aim of this paper is to describe a potential non-invasive neurostimulation strategy for treating persistent anosmia in post-COVID-19 patients. In order to design the neurostimulation strategy, 25 subjects who experienced anosmia due to COVID-19 infection underwent an olfactory assessment while their electroencephalographic (EEG) signals were recorded. These signals were used to investigate the activation of brain regions during the olfactory process and identify which regions would be suitable for neurostimulation. Afterwards, 15 subjects participated in the evaluation of the neurostimulation strategy, which was based on applying transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) in selected brain regions related to olfactory function. The results showed that subjects with lower scores in the olfactory assessment obtained greater improvement than the other subjects. Thus, tDCS could be a promising option for people who have not fully regained their sense of smell following COVID-19 infection.
2019 年底，由于 2019 年冠状病毒病（COVID-19）的爆发，宣布了一种新的大流行。COVID-19 感染的影响之一是嗅觉丧失（即嗅觉丧失）。不幸的是，这种嗅觉功能障碍在世界人口中约有 5%持续存在，目前还没有有效的治疗方法。本文旨在描述一种针对 COVID-19 后持续性嗅觉丧失患者的潜在非侵入性神经刺激策略。为了设计神经刺激策略，25 名因 COVID-19 感染而经历嗅觉丧失的受试者在接受嗅觉评估的同时记录他们的脑电图（EEG）信号。这些信号用于研究嗅觉过程中大脑区域的激活，并确定哪些区域适合神经刺激。之后，15 名受试者参与了基于在与嗅觉功能相关的选定大脑区域应用经颅直流电刺激（tDCS）的神经刺激策略的评估。结果表明，嗅觉评估得分较低的受试者比其他受试者获得了更大的改善。因此，tDCS 可能是 COVID-19 感染后尚未完全恢复嗅觉的人的一个有前途的选择。
