Summary: A new study highlights that olfactory testing could offer a simple, cost-effective way to detect early cognitive impairment from home. Researchers found that older adults with mild cognitive issues performed worse on odor identification and memory tasks than cognitively normal individuals.
The test, administered in English and Spanish, was equally effective across language groups and whether or not participants were supervised. These findings support the use of smell tests as a noninvasive screening tool to identify people at risk for Alzheimer’s and other neurodegenerative diseases before memory symptoms emerge.
Key Facts:
- At-Home Feasibility: Participants successfully completed the smell test at home without supervision.
- Olfactory-Cognition Link: Adults with mild cognitive impairment showed reduced odor memory and identification.
- Language Inclusivity: Test results were consistent across English- and Spanish-speaking participants.
Source: Harvard
When it comes to early detection of cognitive impairment, a new study suggests that the nose knows.
Researchers from Harvard-affiliated Mass General Brigham developed olfactory tests — in which participants sniff odor labels that have been placed on a card — to assess people’s ability to discriminate, identify, and remember odors.
They found that participants could successfully take the test at home and that older adults with cognitive impairment scored lower on the test than cognitively normal adults. Results are published in Scientific Reports.
“Early detection of cognitive impairment could help us identify people who are at risk of Alzheimer’s disease and intervene years before memory symptoms begin,” said senior author Mark Albers of the Laboratory of Olfactory Neurotranslation, the McCance Center for Brain Health, Department of Neurology at Massachusetts General Hospital, and an assistant professor of neurology at Harvard Medical School.
“Our goal has been to develop and validate a cost-effective, noninvasive test that can be performed at home, helping to set the stage for advancing research and treatment for Alzheimer’s.”
Albers and colleagues are interested in whether olfactory dysfunction — the sometimes-subtle loss of sense of smell — can serve as an early warning sign for neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, chronic traumatic encephalopathy, and traumatic brain injury.
Albers helped found a company that makes the Aromha Brain Health Test, which is the test used by the research team to conduct the current study.
To evaluate the olfactory test, the team recruited English- and Spanish-speaking participants with subjective cognitive complaints (those with self-reported concerns about memory) and participants with mild cognitive impairment.
They compared these participants’ test results with those from people who had no sense of smell and with cognitively normal individuals.
The research team found that odor identification, memory, and discrimination declined with age. They also found that older adults with mild cognitive impairment had lower scores for odor discrimination and identification compared with older adults who were cognitively normal.
Overall, the researchers found that test results were similar across English- and Spanish-speakers, and participants performed the test equally successfully regardless of whether they were observed by a research assistant.
The authors note that future studies could incorporate neuropsychological testing and could follow patients over time to see if the tool can predict cognitive decline.
“Our results suggest that olfactory testing could be used in clinical research settings in different languages and among older adults to predict neurodegenerative disease and development of clinical symptoms,” said Albers.
Funding: The study was funded by the National Institutes of Health.
About this cognitive decline and Alzheimer’s disease research news
Author: Mass General Brigham Communications
Source: Harvard
Contact: Mass General Brigham Communications – Harvard
Image: The image is credited to Neuroscience News
Original Research: Open access.
“The AROMHA brain health test is a remote olfactory assessment to screen for cognitive impairment” by Mark Albers et al. Scientific Reports
Abstract
The AROMHA brain health test is a remote olfactory assessment to screen for cognitive impairment
Cost-effective, noninvasive screening methods for preclinical Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and other neurocognitive disorders remain an unmet need. The olfactory neural circuits develop AD pathological changes prior to symptom onset.
To probe these vulnerable circuits, we developed the digital remote AROMHA Brain Health Test (ABHT), an at-home odor identification, discrimination, memory, and intensity assessment.
The ABHT was self-administered among cognitively normal (CN) English and Spanish speakers (n = 127), participants with subjective cognitive complaints (SCC; n = 34), and mild cognitive impairment (MCI; n = 19).
Self-administered tests took place remotely at home under unobserved (among interested CN participants) and observed modalities (CN, SCC, and MCI), as well as in-person with a research assistant present (CN, SCC, and MCI). Olfactory performance was similar across observed and unobserved remote self-administration and between English and Spanish speakers.
Odor memory, identification, and discrimination scores decreased with age, and olfactory identification and discrimination were lower in the MCI group compared to CN and SCC groups, independent of age, sex, and education. The ABHT revealed age-related olfactory decline, and discriminated CN older adults from those with cognitive impairment.
Replication of our results in other populations would support the use of the ABHT to identify and monitor individuals at risk for developing dementia.
