Neuroscience
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A right-left dichotomy of olfactory processes has been recognized on several levels of the perception or processing of olfactory input. On a clinical level, the lateralization of components of human olfaction is contrasted by the predominantly birhinal olfactory testing. The present analyses aimed at investigation of the relation of such side-differences related with the subject's age, sex and with the cause or degree of olfactory loss. ⋯ The observation particularly owed to olfactory loss attributed to head trauma, which may hint at a different impact on the left or right hemisphere processing of olfactory input. Thus, between-nostrils agreement in odor identification is limited and the common unilateral olfactory testing probably misses important information. Lateral differences owe to age, sex, kind of odor and etiology of olfactory loss.