Nasal airflow and odorant transport: a prerequisite for normal olfaction

描述（由申请人提供）：空气/气味流向嗅觉感受器部位的机械性阻塞可能是鼻窦疾病患者嗅觉丧失的主要原因。不幸的是，使用声学测压、鼻测压或CT扫描来量化各种鼻塞的功能影响和随后的手术结果是不够的。研究表明，这些现有的客观测量与患者的主观症状之间的相关性很差。最近开发的计算流体动力学（CFD）建模技术已显示出量化位置依赖性，阻塞引起的变化，鼻腔气流模式和气味粘膜沉积的承诺，并有可能表征其功能对患者的嗅觉功能的影响。本申请的目的是建立健康受试者的鼻气流模式和气味剂递送速率的基线，将来可以从该基线验证临床患者中嗅觉丧失的假定传导机制。在未来，这样的建模技术可以提供定量评估的外科手术和重要的术前指导，以优化气流和气味剂输送在人的鼻子。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Mechanical obstruction of air/odorant flow to olfactory receptor sites may be a primary cause of olfactory loss in nasal-sinus disease patients. Unfortunately, quantifying the functional impact of various nasal obstruction and the subsequent surgical outcomes using acoustic rhinometry, rhinomanometry or CT scans is inadequate. Studies have shown a poor correlation between these existing objective measurements with patients' subjective symptoms. Recently developed computational fluid dynamic (CFD) modeling techniques have shown promise for quantifying the location-dependent, obstruction-induced changes in nasal airflow pattern and odorant mucosal deposition and have the potential to characterize their functional impact on patients' olfactory function. The goal of this application is to establish a baseline in nasal airflow pattern and odorant delivery rate among healthy subjects, from which the putative conductive mechanisms of olfactory loss among clinical patients can be verified in future. In the future, such modeling techniques may provide quantitative evaluation of surgical procedures and an important pre-operative guide to optimize airflow and odorant delivery in human nose.