PhD (Applied Sciences)
Doctorate
| Level | Doctorate |
|---|---|
| Student | Miss Emily Spencer |
| Status | Current |
| Part Time | No |
| Years | 2022 - 2025 |
| Project Title | Developing a Multisensory Smell Retraining Programme |
| Project Description | The goal of this PhD project is to investigate the best approach for retraining the sense of smell following olfactory loss by providing insight into the fundamental mechanisms of odour perception, and revealing how olfactory disorders can be rehabilitated. To achieve this, a series of studies will be carried out, beginning with a systematic review of the literature to identify the critical features of current smell retraining programmes, and followed by an experiment in which participants with olfactory loss will take part in different versions of the training. Once the best approach for olfactory training has been identified, a behavioural experiment will be conducted to aid the development of the multi-sensory smell training program. Participants will be exposed to odours paired with stimuli from other sensory modalities (e.g., colours, shapes, textures) thought to be associated with specific odours to test whether pairing odours with congruent versus incongruent multi-sensory information facilitates performance on odour detection and discrimination. In the final study of the PhD, the multi-sensory smell training programme will be tested. Participants with olfactory loss will be given odours paired with perceptual stimuli to interact with daily, and the results will be compared against those of the control group, who will only be given odours. Odour perception will be tested before and after training with the Burghart Sniffin Sticks smell battery. In addition we will measure cortical activity before and after training using fNIRS. |
| Awarding Institution | Edinburgh Napier University |
| Director of Studies | Duncan Carmichael |
| Second Supervisor | Eleanor Drake |