Nasal airflow and odorant transport: a prerequisite for normal olfaction

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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 proposal 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.