ISABIAL and UMH launch a study with patients to treat loss of smell caused by COVID‑19
Research staff will recruit volunteers for a study in which non‑invasive electrical stimulation will be used at Doctor Balmis General Hospital
The project is funded by resources allocated to fight the pandemic by the Generalitat Valenciana
Alicante (30.09.22). The Alicante Health and Biomedical Research Institute (ISABIAL) and Miguel Hernández University of Elche (UMH) have launched a study aimed at providing a treatment, through non‑invasive electrical stimulation, to enable the recovery of the sense of smell in patients who lost it after COVID‑19 and have not recovered it three months after overcoming the disease.
To carry out this study, research staff from ISABIAL and UMH are conducting a process of recruitment and selection of patients who meet the established requirements and voluntarily agree to participate. The tests will be carried out in the Neurology outpatient clinics of Doctor Balmis University General Hospital.
The project is led by María Azorín, Professor at UMH, and is entitled Exploratory Study of the Effects of Non‑Invasive Neurostimulation in Patients with Persistent Anosmia after COVID‑19. To carry it out, the research team contacted the Neurology Department and the COVID‑19 Research Group at Doctor Balmis General Hospital, which will be responsible for patient selection and the tests to be conducted at the hospital.
This multidisciplinary group will use technology developed at the Elche campus in hospital consultations in Alicante. Specifically, the project aims to design and evaluate a new strategy based on transcranial electrical stimulation, led by María Azorín, through a technique that allows modulation of neural activity in a non‑invasive, painless, and safe manner using superficial electrodes.
To achieve this, as María Azorín explained, “a low‑intensity electric current is applied to generate a flow of electrons from one electrode to another placed on the scalp.” The project aims to provide a possible treatment that is currently nonexistent.
ISABIAL researcher Rosa María Sánchez has explained that “most patients recover their sense of smell within three days, and very often within three months after having had coronavirus, but there are patients who do not fully recover it,” which is why they are needed to carry out the study.
During the process, Rosa María Sánchez has indicated that the patient will undergo an olfactory test consisting of distinguishing between different odor substances in order to determine the degree of smell loss, after which transcranial stimulation will be applied. After several sessions, the olfactory test will be repeated to verify whether the effect has been effective.
Process
The project, funded by Generalitat COVID‑19 funds, consists of three phases. In the first phase, a session is carried out in which the person’s brain activity is recorded using electroencephalography (EEG) while an olfactory test is performed. Based on the brain activity, cerebral patterns associated with anosmia, which is the loss of the sense of smell, will be identified.
In the second phase, the patient undergoes five neurostimulation sessions over a period of two weeks in the brain areas associated with anosmia. Finally, in the third phase, specialists will again perform an olfactory test on the patient while brain activity is recorded again, in order to observe the changes produced.
The multidisciplinary team participating in the study is made up of research staff from ISABIAL and UMH. In addition to María Azorín, Director of the Brain‑Machine Interface Systems Lab at UMH, Eduardo Iáñez and Mario Ortiz, professors at UMH and members of the same research group, also participate. Likewise, Desiree Irene Gracia and Tatiana Candela collaborate in research tasks on behalf of UMH.
The ISABIAL research staff and the Department of Health professionals participating in the study include Rosa María Sánchez, Carmina Díaz and Alessandra Muñoz from the Neurology Department; as well as Oscar Moreno (Endocrinology) and Sergio Barlin (Infectious Diseases Unit), all of whom are part of the COVID‑19 Group of the Alicante Health Department – Hospital General.
