Temporary loss of smell, or anosmia, is a common symptom of COVID-19, and a study recently determined the cell types in the upper nasal cavity most vulnerable to SARS-CoV-2 infection.
The research team led by neuroscientists at Harvard Medical School (HMS) discovered that non-neuronal cell types may be responsible for loss of smell in patients with coronavirus. Their findings were recently published in Science Advances.
“Our findings indicate that the new coronavirus changes the sense of smell in patients by not directly infecting neurons but by affecting support cell function,” said Sandeep Robert Datta, lead author of the study and associate professor of neurobiology at the Blavatnik Institute of the HMS, in a university press release.
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The researchers say that olfactory support cells, not neurons, are vulnerable to SARS-CoV-2 infection. (iStock)
This finding implies that the infection is unlikely to cause lasting damage and persistent loss of smell.
“I think that is good news because once the infection goes away, the olfactory neurons don’t seem to need to be replaced or rebuilt from scratch,” Datta said. “But we need more data and a better understanding of the underlying mechanisms to confirm this conclusion.”
A separate, unrelated study found that nearly 90 percent of a given subset of coronavirus patients saw an improvement in smell over four weeks. The researchers evaluated 202 adults with mild symptoms at the Treviso Regional Hospital in Italy. At four weeks, 89 percent of patients reporting a sudden onset of altered sense of smell or taste saw complete resolution or improvement in symptoms.
According to Harvard researchers, other viral infections (including coronaviruses) are known to have an odor recovery time of months. These infections are known to inflict direct damage to olfactory sensory neurons. In these viruses, inflammatory responses can cause changes in odor perception, although some cases of COVID-19-related anosmia occurred without nasal inflammation.
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