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| Poster #215 Probing Olfactory Function with the AROMHA Brain Health Test and the Brief Smell Identification Test (B-SIT) |
| Benoit Jobin1,2, Hengbin Zhang1, Beyzanur Ergun1, Colin Magdama1,3, Sean Reineke4, Alefiya Dhilla Albers1,5, Mark W Albers1,3 1Department of Neurology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA, United States 2Department of Psychology, Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières, Trois-Rivières, QC, Canada 3Program in Neuroscience, Laboratory of Systems Pharmacology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, United States 4AROMHA Inc., Boston, MA, United States 5Department of Psychology, Endicott College., Beverly, MA, United States |
We recently developed and validated the digital remote AROMHA Brain Health Test (ABHT), an at-home olfactory battery that can be self-administered in English and Spanish. Previous results showed that the battery distinguishes older adults with amnestic Mild Cognitive Impairment from those with normal cognition (CN), suggesting its utility as a screening tool for development of memory decline due to Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Here, we compared the ABHT to the Brief Smell Identification Test (B-SIT), a 12-item scratch-sniff smell identification test used extensively to measure olfactory function. While the B-SIT measures smell identification, the ABHT measures different components of the olfactory function, including odor percept identification (OPID9, OPID9NoGuess, OPID18, OPID18NoGuess), odor discrimination (OD10), percepts of odor episodic memory (POEM), perceived intensity, and identification-confidence. Both tests were administered in sequence to 23 CN older adults (mean age: 66, SD:8.31). We performed correlational and linear regression analyses to analyze the relationship between B-SIT scores and components of the ABHT battery. All identification outcomes of the ABHT correlated with the B-SIT score (OPID9: r=.44, p=.03; OPID9NoGuess: r=.43, p=.04; OPID18: r=.44, p=.03; OPID18NoGuess: r=.55, p=.006). As expected, discrimination (OD10: r=.37, p=.08), memory (POEM: r=.17, p=.42), intensity (r=-.06, p=.78), and confidence (r=.20, p=.36) did not correlate with the B-SIT. Age and sex did not moderate these associations (p>.05). The ABHT’s odor percept identification subtests correlated with the B-SIT. These findings support the validity of the ABHT as a comprehensive tool for assessing olfactory function, with potential utility for early detection of risk of developing symptoms of AD neuropathology. |