Nasal airflow and odorant transport: a prerequisite for normal olfaction

描述（由申请人提供）：空气/气味流向嗅觉受体部位的机械阻塞可能是鼻窦疾病患者嗅觉丧失的主要原因。不幸的是，量化各种鼻塞的功能影响和随后的手术结果使用声学鼻测量，鼻测量或CT扫描是不够的。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。最近发展的计算流体动力学（CFD）建模技术已经显示出量化位置依赖、阻塞引起的鼻腔气流模式和气味粘膜沉积变化的前景，并有可能表征它们对患者嗅觉功能的功能影响。本应用程序的目的是建立健康受试者鼻腔气流模式和气味传递率的基线，由此可以在未来验证临床患者嗅觉丧失的推定传导机制。在未来，这种建模技术可以为外科手术提供定量评估，并为优化人鼻气流和气味传递提供重要的术前指导。

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.