Spatiotemporal Mechanisms of Olfactory Processing in the Human Brain

(Administrative Supplement)COVID-19 is a viral disease (SARS-CoV-2) that was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization onMarch 11, 2020. The disease has negatively impacted the health of millions of people around the world and istaking a toll on the global economy. The disease has been particularly difficult to contain as it is highlycontagious, has a long incubation time (2-14 days) and many carriers of the virus are asymptomatic [1-2].Initial reports of the disease showed that the symptoms of COVID-19 are fever, fatigue, body aches andshortness of breath [3-4]. However, more recent reports have shown that many COVID-19 patients also losetheir ability to smell [5]. Furthermore, reports show that the patients who experience smell loss may otherwisebe asymptomatic suggesting that smell loss could potentially be an early indicator of COVID-19 in a subset ofthe population [5]. These recent findings highlight the importance of studying the relationship between smellloss and COVID-19 to better understand the mechanisms and symptoms of the disorder as well as its potentiallong term effects. The study proposed here will investigate: 1) the extent to which COVID-19 patients developsmell loss (anosmia); and 2) whether the early presence of anosmia can be used to predict the severity ofdisease. To invesitgate this urgent question, we will use the well-established 8-item "Brief" University ofPennsylvania Smell Identification Test ("B-SIT") [6-9] to assess the olfactory abilities in patients with suspectedCOVID-19 infection who present to the COVID-19 external testing sites affiliated with the University ofPennsylvania.