• David Dylan García-Meléndez, Raquel Moreno Presa, CastroPilar QuintanaPQUniversity Hospital of Toledo, Av. del Río Guadiana, 45007 Toledo, Spain., Bárbara Serrano Calleja, Sara Rosenstone Calvo, and María Isabel Morales-Casado.
• University Hospital of Toledo, Av. del Río Guadiana, 45007 Toledo, Spain.
• Med Clin (Barc). 2024 Jul 2.

IntroductionPersistent post-COVID olfactory dysfunction continues to be studied due to the controversy in its pathophysiology and neuroimaging.Materials And MethodsThe patients had confirmed mild COVID-19 infection with olfactory dysfunction of more than one month of evolution and they were compared to controls with normal olfaction, assessed using the Sniffin' Sticks Olfactory Test and underwent brain, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of the olfactory bulb and olfactory function.ResultsA total of 8 patients and 2 controls participated. The average age of the patients was 34.5 years (SD 8.5), and that of the controls was 28.5 (SD 2.1). The average score in the patients' olfactory test was 7.9 points (SD 2.2). In brain and olfactory bulb MRI tests, no morphological differences were found. When evaluated by functional MRI, none of the patients activated the entorhinal area in comparison to the controls, who did show activation at this level. Activation of secondary olfactory areas in cases and controls were as follows: orbitofrontal (25% vs 100%), basal ganglia (25% vs 50%) and insula (38% vs 0%) respectively.ConclusionsThere were no observed morphological changes in the brain MRI. Unlike the controls, none of the patients activated the entorhinal cortex in the olfactory functional MRI.Copyright © 2024 Elsevier España, S.L.U. All rights reserved.

10 keywords...

hide…