Scientists have developed a bionic nose that allows people who lose their sense of smell to smell again.

According to CTOnews.com, October 21, one of COVID-19 's sequelae is the loss of taste and smell. Aging and brain trauma may also lead to olfactory dysfunction, but there is no effective solution to olfactory dysfunction.

The good news is that researchers from Virginia Commonwealth University in the United States have shown an electronic bionic nose that may help people with smell blindness smell again.

The research began in 2011, and the electronic nose includes a pair of glasses with sensors that collect odors and send signals to an implant that looks like a cochlear implant, of course, the implant is designed to trigger the olfactory bulb in the brain and produce a different sense of smell.

The team tested it on mice, but there is still a lot of work to be done before the device can be tested or commercialized in humans. There are 400 olfactory receptors in the human nose, and thousands of combinations make up a particular odor, and mapping these to an electronic device is not a small task. Even if the team cannot restore the entire range of odors through these glasses, the device can be customized for a small number of odors that are important to each user.

CTOnews.com learned that the team is currently working to improve the sensor's ability to detect more than several odors and determine the best way to communicate with the brain.