ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2017
SMELL-S and SMELL-R: Olfactory tests not influenced by odor-specific insensitivity or prior olfactory experience.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 31 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
31 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 67 citations in OpenAlex.
- Genome-wide association meta-analysis of human olfactory identification discovers sex-specific and sex-differential genetic variants.Nature communications · 2025Pooled it
- Olfactory dysfunction in aging and neurodegenerative diseases.Ageing research reviews · 2021Pooled it
- The effects of caffeine on olfactory function and mood: an exploratory study.Psychopharmacology · 2020Trial
- The Unmet Need of Olfactory Testing in Inflammatory Disorders of the Upper Airways-An EAACI Position Paper.Allergy · 2026Review
- Evaluating methods for quantitative olfactory assessment: a comparative longitudinal analysis of Sniffin' Sticks and alternative tools.Chemical senses · 2026Article
- Point-of-care smell testing for evaluation of olfactory function: a narrative review of clinical utility.Frontiers in allergy · 2026Review
- A new method for automated olfactory threshold testing.Chemical senses · 2025Article
- Multi-channel portable odor delivery device for self-administered and rapid smell testing.Communications engineering · 2024Article
- Effects of genetics on odor perception: Can a quick smell test effectively screen everyone?Chemical senses · 2024Article
- The PEA Bead Test as a Screening Tool for Olfactory Dysfunction: A Preliminary Study.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Article
- Properties of odor identification testing in screening for early-stage Alzheimer's disease.Scientific reports · 2023Article
- Neurons, Nose, and Neurodegenerative Diseases: Olfactory Function and Cognitive Impairment.International journal of molecular sciences · 2023Review
- Odor Discrimination as a Marker of Early Alzheimer's Disease.Journal of Alzheimer's disease : JAD · 2023Article
- Proof-of-concept: SCENTinel 1.1 rapidly discriminates COVID-19-related olfactory disorders.Chemical senses · 2023Article
- Regional homogeneity alterations of resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging of chronic rhinosinusitis with olfactory dysfunction.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2023Article
- Proof-of-concept: SCENTinel 1.1 rapidly discriminates COVID-19 related olfactory disorders.medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences · 2022Article
- International consensus statement on allergy and rhinology: Olfaction.International forum of allergy & rhinology · 2022Review
- The Adaptive Olfactory Measure of Threshold (ArOMa-T): a rapid test of olfactory function.Chemical senses · 2022Article
- Development of the Spanish Version of Sniffin's Sticks Olfactory Identification Test: Normative Data and Validity of Parallel Measures.Brain sciences · 2021Article
- Altered Functional Connectivity Strength of Primary Visual Cortex in Subjects with Diabetic Retinopathy.Diabetes, metabolic syndrome and obesity : targets and therapy · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors at 4 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
Abstract
Smell dysfunction is a common and underdiagnosed medical condition that can have serious consequences. It is also an early biomarker of neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer's disease, where olfactory deficits precede detectable memory loss. Clinical tests that evaluate the sense of smell face two major challenges. First, human sensitivity to individual odorants varies significantly, so test results may be unreliable in people with low sensitivity to a test odorant but an otherwise normal sense of smell. Second, prior familiarity with odor stimuli can bias smell test performance. We have developed nonsemantic tests for olfactory sensitivity (SMELL-S) and olfactory resolution (SMELL-R) that use mixtures of odorants that have unfamiliar smells. The tests can be self-administered by healthy individuals with minimal training and show high test-retest reliability. Because SMELL-S uses odor mixtures rather than a single molecule, odor-specific insensitivity is averaged out, and the test accurately distinguished people with normal and dysfunctional smell. SMELL-R is a discrimination test in which the difference between two stimulus mixtures can be altered stepwise. This is an advance over current discrimination tests, which ask subjects to discriminate monomolecular odorants whose difference in odor cannot be quantified. SMELL-R showed significantly less bias in scores between North American and Taiwanese subjects than conventional semantically based smell tests that need to be adapted to different languages and cultures. Based on these proof-of-principle results in healthy individuals, we predict that SMELL-S and SMELL-R will be broadly effective in diagnosing smell dysfunction.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.