Olfactory training effects in children after mild traumatic brain injury

ABSTRACT

Objective

Mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) might impair the sense of smell and cognitive functioning. Repeated, systematic exposure to odors, i.e., olfactory training (OT) has been proposed for treatment of olfactory dysfunctions, including post-traumatic smell loss. Additionally, OT has been shown to mitigate cognitive deterioration in older population and enhance selected cognitive functions in adults. We aimed to investigate olfactory and cognitive effects of OT in the pediatric population after mTBI, likely to exhibit cognitive and olfactory deficits.

Methods

Our study comprised 159 children after mTBI and healthy controls aged 6–16 years (M = 9.68 ± 2.78 years, 107 males), who performed 6-months-long OT with a set of 4 either high- or low-concentrated odors. Before and after OT we assessed olfactory functions, fluid intelligence, and executive functions.

Results

OT with low-concentrated odors increased olfactory sensitivity in children after mTBI. Regardless of health status, children who underwent OT with low-concentrated odors had higher fluid intelligence scores at post-training measurement, whereas scores of children performing OT with high-concentrated odors did not change.

Conclusion

Our study suggests that OT with low-concentrated odors might accelerate rehabilitation of olfactory sensitivity in children after mTBI and support cognitive functions in the area of fluid intelligence regardless of head trauma.

KEYWORDS:

• Olfaction
• cognition
• head injury
• executive functions
• fluid intelligence

Disclosure statement

The authors report there are no competing interests to declare.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/02699052.2023.2237889

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon a reasonable request.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Science Centre grant (OPUS scheme 2020/37/B/HS6/00288) awarded to AO and by the Medizinische Fakultät Carl Gustav Carus, Technische Universität Dresden (MedDrive) to VAS.