Nasal cavity model advances Parkinson's research

If you’ve ever wondered what the inside of your nose looks like, scientists can help. What’s more, the groundbreaking 3D computer reconstruction of the inside of a nasal cavity and part of the cranial cavity may help to find treatments for Parkinson’s disease.

A team from the University of Auckland Centre for Brain Research, in collaboration with the Auckland Bioengineering Institute and the Max Planck Research Unit for Neurogenetics in Frankfurt/Germany, has generated a 3D reconstruction of the human olfactory system – the part of our nervous system that gives us our sense of smell. See Nature publication Communications Biology.

Losing your sense of smell is one of the earliest indicators of Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s diseases, but often goes undiagnosed.

The reconstruction helps neuroscientists to “fly” through the nasal cavity.

Professor Maurice Curtis, the lead researcher from the University of Auckland said: “This paper is a demonstration of what is possible through multidisciplinary research and international collaboration.

“This work is clinically relevant as it helps us understand the neuronal wiring and anatomical structures in the human olfactory system.”

The nasal cavity is also the entry site of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, and the reconstructed model may shed light on why loss of smell can be a symptom of COVID-19. The olfactory sensory cells are unique because they sit outside of the blood-brain barrier, making it one of the few regions where direct access to the nervous system is possible. In the case of Parkinson’s disease, once disease spreads to other parts of the brain, the damaged neurons become much harder to reach.

The striking 3D fly-through animation over the reconstructed model visualises the anatomical pathway from the nose to the brain. Watch the fly-through.

It is also the first time the number of sensory cells in the nose that detect odors have been reported, a whopping 2.7 million.

The reconstructed model is the result of several years and thousands of hours of meticulous work by a multidisciplinary team. Neuroanatomist Dr Victoria Low, from the Centre for Brain Research and Department of Anatomy and Medical Imaging, began by painstakingly slicing around 2000 very thin sections of donated human tissue.

Each section was stained to reveal odour-detecting neurons, blood vessels, and other structures of interest. The slides were sent to Germany for automated microscope scanning, a feat that took around 2000 hours. Next, Dr Gonzalo Maso Talou and coworkers at the Auckland Bioengineering Institute of the University of Auckland, trained an AI algorithm on a high-performance computing cluster to create a virtual model from the images. The massive amount of data processing needed to generate the 3D reconstruction was conducted by a supercomputer at New Zealand’s eScience Infrastructure (NeSI).

Dr Peter Mombaerts, Director of the Max Planck Research Unit for Neurogenetics and co-leader of this project, said: “It’s been a great pleasure to collaborate with the scientists at the University of Auckland and Auckland Bioengineering Institute during this multi-year effort. I look forward to a continuation of this unique collaboration between antipodes”.

The work was funded by Cure Parkinson’s NZ. CEO Dr Daniel McGowan said: “We are proud to have supported this work as understanding the brain region where Parkinson’s disease begins will be an important first step toward enabling early diagnosis and potentially preventing pathological proteins in this region of the brain from spreading to others.”

• The paper, titled ‘Visualizing the human olfactory projection and ancillary structures in a 3D reconstruction’ was recently published in Communications Biology