Poster De Conférence Année : 2023

Olfactory training in the elderly: impact on olfactory perception, cognition and well-being.

Résumé

Normal aging is characterized by a global decline in sensory acuity and cognition, including olfactory perception. In France, 30% of people over 60 years old suffer from olfactory deficits, that negatively impact physical and mental health. Very few treatments have been developed against olfactory deficits. Among them, olfactory training (repeated exposures to odorants) has emerged as a promising paradigm but still needs to be optimized. In addition to improving olfactory perception, olfactory training may have broader cognitive benefits. Preservation of cognition in later life is associated to the build-up of a cognitive reserve along life through diverse cognitive and social activities. Such reserve is hypothesized to be built through repeated stimulations of the noradrenergic system by saliency and renewal of environmental stimuli. This enables the maintenance of this neuromodulatory system at later ages and thereby the preservation of cognitive performances. In this study, to optimize olfactory training as a remediation strategy for olfactory deficits and to test its efficiency as a tool to broadly promote betteraging, we have set up a 4-month-long olfactory training protocol based on odorants’ renewal. This training at home consists in a daily exposure to various odorants followed by a characterization in terms of intensity, valence and familiarity. Two groups of dysosmic and normosmic participants over 55 years old were trained with this protocol and compared to control groups (trained with a unique odorant). To evaluate the benefits of this long-term olfactory training, participants were evaluated before, at midterm and after training, on olfactory perception (ETOC, Sniffin Sticks), cognitive performances (cognitive flexibility and visuo-spatial memory tasks), well-being (questionnaires) and food behavior (in a living lab). To test the involvement of the noradrenergic system in these benefits, its activity was indirectly measured using pupillometry during a classical auditory odd-ball task. We hypothesize that olfactory training with renewed odorants will improve olfactory performances and have wider benefits on cognition and well-being through the repeated recruitment of the noradrenergic system. Altogether this study aims at better understanding the benefits of olfactory training to counteract olfactory deficits and to promote better-aging in the elderly.

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Dates et versions

hal-04956462 , version 1 (19-02-2025)

Identifiants

  • HAL Id : hal-04956462 , version 1

Citer

Erwan Moussy, Arnaud Fournel, Jérémy Vieira, Maxime Fieux, Frédéric Faure, et al.. Olfactory training in the elderly: impact on olfactory perception, cognition and well-being.. NeuroFrance, May 2023, Lyon, France. ⟨hal-04956462⟩
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