In March, researchers published a review that lists which organic chemicals match up with certain diseases and biomarkers in the skin, saliva and urine. It’s an important step in creating a robot nose that can reliably detect diseases.
All diseases alter the organic compounds found in the body and their odors. Volatolomics is an emerging branch of chemistry that uses the smell of gases emitted by breath, urine, blood, stool, tears or sweat to diagnose disease. When someone is sick, the normal biochemical process is disrupted, and this alters the makeup of the gas, including a change in odor.
“These metabolites show a snapshot of what’s going on with the body,” says Cristina Davis, a biomedical engineer and associate vice chancellor of Interdisciplinary Research and Strategic Initiatives at the University of California, Davis. This opens the door to diagnosing conditions even before symptoms are present. It’s possible to detect a sweet, fruity smell in the breath of someone with diabetes, for example.
Hippocrates may have been the first to note that people with certain diseases give off an odor but dogs provided the proof of concept. Scientists have published countless studies in which dogs or other high-performing smellers like rodents have identified people with cancer, lung disease or other conditions by smell alone. The brain region that analyzes smells is proportionally about 40 times greater in dogs than in people. The noses of rodents are even more powerful.
Take prostate cancer, which is notoriously difficult to detect accurately with standard medical testing. After sniffing a tiny urine sample, trained dogs were able to pick out prostate cancer in study subjects more than 96 percent of the time, and earlier than a physician could in some cases.
But using dogs as bio-detectors is not practical. It is labor-intensive, complicated and expensive to train dogs to bark or lie down when they smell a certain VOC, explains Bruce Kimball, a chemical ecologist at the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia. Kimball has trained ferrets to scratch a box when they smell a specific VOC so he knows. The lab animal must be taught to distinguish the VOC from background odors and trained anew for each disease scent.
In the lab of chemical ecologist Bruce Kimball, ferrets were trained to scratch a box when they identified avian flu in mallard ducks.
Glen J. Golden
There are some human super-smellers among us. In 2019, Joy Milne of Scotland proved she could unerringly identify people with Parkinson’s disease from a musky scent emitted from their skin. Clinical testing showed that she could distinguish the odor of Parkinson’s on a worn t-shirt before clinical symptoms even appeared.
Hossam Haick, a professor at Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, maintains that volatolomics is the future of medicine. Misdiagnosis and late detection are huge problems in health care, he says. “A precise and early diagnosis is the starting point of all clinical activities.” Further, this science has the potential to eliminate costly invasive testing or imaging studies and improve outcomes through earlier treatment.
The Nose Knows a Lot
“Volatolomics is not a fringe theory. There is science behind it,” Davis stresses. Every VOC has its own fingerprint, and a method called gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GCMS) uses highly sensitive instruments to separate the molecules of these VOCs to determine their structures. But GCMS can’t discern the telltale patterns of particular diseases, and other technologies to analyze biomarkers have been limited.
We have technology that can see, hear and sense touch but scientists don’t have a handle yet on how smell works. The ability goes beyond picking out a single scent in someone’s breath or blood sample. It’s the totality of the smell—not the smell of a single chemical— which defines a disease. The dog’s brain is able to infer something when they smell a VOC that eludes human analysis so far.
Odor is a complex ecosystem and analyzing a VOC is compounded by other scents in the environment, says Kimball. A person’s diet and use of tobacco or alcohol also will affect the breath. Even fluctuations in humidity and temperature can contaminate a sample.
If successful, a sophisticated AI network can imitate how the dog brain recognizes patterns in smells. Early versions of robot noses have already been developed.
With today’s advances in data mining, AI and machine learning, scientists are trying to create mechanical devices that can draw on algorithms based on GCMS readings and data about diseases that dogs have sniffed out. If successful, a sophisticated AI network can imitate how the dog brain recognizes patterns in smells.
In March, Nano Research published a comprehensive review of volatolomics in health care authored by Haick and seven colleagues. The intent was to bridge gaps in the field for scientists trying to connect the biomarkers and sensor technology needed to develop a robot nose. This paper serves as a reference manual for the field that lists which VOCs are associated with what disease and the biomarkers in skin, saliva, breath, and urine.
Weiwei Wu, one of the co-authors and a professor at Xidian University in China, explains that creating a robotic nose requires the expertise of chemists, computer scientists, electrical engineers, material scientists, and clinicians. These researchers use different terms and methodologies and most have not collaborated before with the other disciplines. “The electrical engineers know the device but they don’t know as much about the biomarkers they need to detect,” Wu offers as an example.
This review is significant, Wu continues, because it can facilitate progress in the field by providing experts in all the disciplines with the basic knowledge needed to create an effective robot nose for diagnostic use. The paper also includes a systematic summary of the research methodology of volatolomics.
Once scientists build a stronger database of VOCs, they can program a device to identify critical patterns of specified diseases on a reliable basis. On a machine learning model, the algorithms automatically get better at diagnosing with each use. Wu envisions further tweaks in the next few years to make the devices smaller and consume less power.
A Whiff of the Future
Early versions of robot noses have already been developed. Some of them use chemical sensors to pick up smells in the breath or other body emission molecules. That data is sent through an electrical signal to a computer network for interpretation and possible linkage to a disease.
This electronic nose, or e-nose, has been successful in small pilot studies at labs around the world. At Ben-Gurion University in Israel, researchers detected breast cancer with electronic gas sensors with 95% accuracy, a higher sensitivity than mammograms. Other robot noses, called p-noses, use photons instead of electrical signals.
The mechanical noses being developed tap different methodologies and analytic techniques which makes it hard to compare them. Plus, the devices are intended for varying uses. One team, for example, is working on an e-nose that can be waved over a plate to screen for the presence of a particular allergen when you’re dining out.
A robot nose could be used as a real-time diagnostic tool in clinical practice. Kimball is working on one such tool that can distinguish between a viral and bacterial infection. This would enable physicians to determine whether an antibiotic prescription is appropriate without waiting for a lab result.
Davis is refining a hand-held device that identifies COVID-19 through a simple breath test. She sees the tool being used at crowded airports, sports stadiums and concert venues where PCR or rapid antigen testing is impractical. Background air samples are collected from the space so that those signals can be removed from the human breath measurement. “[The sensor tool] has the same accuracy as the rapid antigen test kits but exhaled breath is easier to collect,” she notes.
The NaNose, also known as the SniffPhone, uses tiny sensors boosted by AI to distinguish Alzheimer's, Crohn's disease, the early stages of several cancers, and other diseases with 84 to 98 percent accuracy.
Hossam Haick
Haick named his team’s robot nose, “NaNose,” since it is based on nanotechnology; the prototype is called the SniffPhone. Using tiny sensors boosted by AI, it can distinguish 23 diseases in human subjects with 84 to 98 percent accuracy. This includes early stages of several cancers, Alzheimer’s, tuberculosis and Crohn’s disease. His team has been raising the accuracy level by combining biomarker signals from both breath and skin, for example. The goal is to achieve 99.9 percent accuracy consistently so no other diagnostic tests would be needed before treating the patient. Plus, it will be affordable, he says.
Kimball predicts we’ll be seeing these diagnostic tools in the next decade. “The physician would narrow down what [the diagnosis] might be and then get the correct tool,” he says. Others are envisioning one device that can screen for multiple diseases by programming the software, which would be updated regularly with new findings.
Larger volatolomics studies must be conducted before these e-noses are ready for clinical use, however. Experts also need to learn how to establish normal reference ranges for e-nose readings to support clinicians using the tool.
“Taking successful prototypes from the lab to industry is the challenge,” says Haick, ticking off issues like reproducibility, mass production and regulation. But volatolomics researchers are unanimous in believing the future of health care is so close they can smell it.
NASA astronaut Frank Rubio floats by the International Space Station’s “window to the world.” Yesterday, he returned from the longest single spaceflight by a U.S. astronaut on record - over one year. Exploring deep space will require even longer missions.
Yesterday, NASA astronaut Frank Rubio returned to Earth after over one year, the longest single spaceflight for a U.S. astronaut. But this is just the start; longer and more complex missions into deep space loom ahead, from returning to the moon in 2025 to eventually sending humans to Mars. Understanding how spaceflight affects the body is vital to success. By studying these impacts, NASA aims to help astronauts perform in space as well as they do on Earth.
The dangers of microgravity are real
A NASA report published in 2016 details a long list of incidents and near-misses caused – at least partly – by space-induced changes in astronauts’ vision and coordination. These issues make it harder to move with precision and to judge distance and velocity.
According to the report, in 1997, a resupply ship collided with the Mir space station, possibly because a crew member bumped into the commander during the final docking maneuver. This mishap caused significant damage to the space station.
Returns to Earth suffered from problems, too. The same report notes that touchdown speeds during the first 100 space shuttle landings were “outside acceptable limits. The fastest landing on record – 224 knots (258 miles) per hour – was linked to the commander’s momentary spatial disorientation.” Earlier, each of the six Apollo crews that landed on the moon had difficulty recognizing moon landmarks and estimating distances. For example, Apollo 15 landed in an unplanned area, ultimately straddling the rim of a five-foot deep crater on the moon, harming one of its engines.
Spaceflight causes unique stresses on astronauts’ brains and central nervous systems. NASA is working to reduce these harmful effects.
NASA
Space messes up your brain
In space, astronauts face the challenges of microgravity, ionizing radiation, social isolation, high workloads, altered circadian rhythms, monotony, confined living quarters and a high-risk environment. Among these issues, microgravity is one of the most consequential in terms of physiological changes. It changes the brain’s structure and its functioning, which can hurt astronauts’ performance.
The brain shifts upwards within the skull, displacing the cerebrospinal fluid, which reduces the brain’s cushioning. Essentially, the brain becomes crowded inside the skull like a pair of too-tight shoes.
That’s partly because of how being in space alters blood flow. On Earth, gravity pulls our blood and other internal fluids toward our feet, but our circulatory valves ensure that the fluids are evenly distributed throughout the body. In space, there’s not enough gravity to pull the fluids down, and they shift up, says Rachael D. Seidler, a physiologist specializing in spaceflight at the University of Florida and principal investigator on many space-related studies. The head swells and legs appear thinner, causing what astronauts call “puffy face chicken legs.”
“The brain changes at the structural and functional level,” says Steven Jillings, equilibrium and aerospace researcher at the University of Antwerp in Belgium. “The brain shifts upwards within the skull,” displacing the cerebrospinal fluid, which reduces the brain’s cushioning. Essentially, the brain becomes crowded inside the skull like a pair of too-tight shoes. Some of the displaced cerebrospinal fluid goes into cavities within the brain, called ventricles, enlarging them. “The remaining fluids pool near the chest and heart,” explains Jillings. After 12 consecutive months in space, one astronaut had a ventricle that was 25 percent larger than before the mission.
Some changes reverse themselves while others persist for a while. An example of a longer-lasting problem is spaceflight-induced neuro-ocular syndrome, which results in near-sightedness and pressure inside the skull. A study of approximately 300 astronauts shows near-sightedness affects about 60 percent of astronauts after long missions on the International Space Station (ISS) and more than 25 percent after spaceflights of only a few weeks.
Another long-term change could be the decreased ability of cerebrospinal fluid to clear waste products from the brain, Seidler says. That’s because compressing the brain also compresses its waste-removing glymphatic pathways, resulting in inflammation, vulnerability to injuries and worsening its overall health.
The effects of long space missions were best demonstrated on astronaut twins Scott and Mark Kelly. This NASA Twins Study showed multiple, perhaps permanent, changes in Scott after his 340-day mission aboard the ISS, compared to Mark, who remained on Earth. The differences included declines in Scott’s speed, accuracy and cognitive abilities that persisted longer than six months after returning to Earth in March 2016.
By the end of 2020, Scott’s cognitive abilities improved, but structural and physiological changes to his eyes still remained, he said in a BBC interview.
“It seems clear that the upward shift of the brain and compression of the surrounding tissues with ventricular expansion might not be a good thing,” Seidler says. “But, at this point, the long-term consequences to brain health and human performance are not really known.”
NASA astronaut Kate Rubins conducts a session for the Neuromapping investigation.
NASA
Staying sharp in space
To investigate how prolonged space travel affects the brain, NASA launched a new initiative called the Complement of Integrated Protocols for Human Exploration Research (CIPHER). “CIPHER investigates how long-duration spaceflight affects both brain structure and function,” says neurobehavioral scientist Mathias Basner at the University of Pennsylvania, a principal investigator for several NASA studies. “Through it, we can find out how the brain adapts to the spaceflight environment and how certain brain regions (behave) differently after – relative to before – the mission.”
To do this, he says, “Astronauts will perform NASA’s cognition test battery before, during and after six- to 12-month missions, and will also perform the same test battery in an MRI scanner before and after the mission. We have to make sure we better understand the functional consequences of spaceflight on the human brain before we can send humans safely to the moon and, especially, to Mars.”
As we go deeper into space, astronauts cognitive and physical functions will be even more important. “A trip to Mars will take about one year…and will introduce long communication delays,” Seidler says. “If you are on that mission and have a problem, it may take eight to 10 minutes for your message to reach mission control, and another eight to 10 minutes for the response to get back to you.” In an emergency situation, that may be too late for the response to matter.
“On a mission to Mars, astronauts will be exposed to stressors for unprecedented amounts of time,” Basner says. To counter them, NASA is considering the continuous use of artificial gravity during the journey, and Seidler is studying whether artificial gravity can reduce the harmful effects of microgravity. Some scientists are looking at precision brain stimulation as a way to improve memory and reduce anxiety due to prolonged exposure to radiation in space.
Other scientists are exploring how to protect neural stem cells (which create brain cells) from radiation damage, developing drugs to repair damaged brain cells and protect cells from radiation.
To boldly go where no astronauts have gone before, they must have optimal reflexes, vision and decision-making. In the era of deep space exploration, the brain—without a doubt—is the final frontier.
Additionally, NASA is scrutinizing each aspect of the mission, including astronaut exercise, nutrition and intellectual engagement. “We need to give astronauts meaningful work. We need to stimulate their sensory, cognitive and other systems appropriately,” Basner says, especially given their extreme confinement and isolation. The scientific experiments performed on the ISS – like studying how microgravity affects the ability of tissue to regenerate is a good example.
“We need to keep them engaged socially, too,” he continues. The ISS crew, for example, regularly broadcasts from space and answers prerecorded questions from students on Earth, and can engage with social media in real time. And, despite tight quarters, NASA is ensuring the crew capsule and living quarters on the moon or Mars include private space, which is critical for good mental health.
Exploring deep space builds on a foundation that began when astronauts first left the planet. With each mission, scientists learn more about spaceflight effects on astronauts’ bodies. NASA will be using these lessons to succeed with its plans to build science stations on the moon and, eventually, Mars.
“Through internally and externally led research, investigations implemented in space and in spaceflight simulations on Earth, we are striving to reduce the likelihood and potential impacts of neurostructural changes in future, extended spaceflight,” summarizes NASA scientist Alexandra Whitmire. To boldly go where no astronauts have gone before, they must have optimal reflexes, vision and decision-making. In the era of deep space exploration, the brain—without a doubt—is the final frontier.
Swiss researchers have found a type of brain cell that appears to be a hybrid of the two other main types — and it could lead to new treatments for brain disorders.
A new brain cell: Researchers at the Wyss Center for Bio and Neuroengineering and the University of Lausanne believe they’ve definitively proven that some astrocytes do actively participate in neurotransmission, making them a sort of hybrid of neurons and glial cells.
According to the researchers, this third type of brain cell, which they call a “glutamatergic astrocyte,” could offer a way to treat Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and other disorders of the nervous system.
“Its discovery opens up immense research prospects,” said study co-director Andrea Volterra.
The study: Neurotransmission starts with a neuron releasing a chemical called a neurotransmitter, so the first thing the researchers did in their study was look at whether astrocytes can release the main neurotransmitter used by neurons: glutamate.
By analyzing astrocytes taken from the brains of mice, they discovered that certain astrocytes in the brain’s hippocampus did include the “molecular machinery” needed to excrete glutamate. They found evidence of the same machinery when they looked at datasets of human glial cells.
Finally, to demonstrate that these hybrid cells are actually playing a role in brain signaling, the researchers suppressed their ability to secrete glutamate in the brains of mice. This caused the rodents to experience memory problems.
“Our next studies will explore the potential protective role of this type of cell against memory impairment in Alzheimer’s disease, as well as its role in other regions and pathologies than those explored here,” said Andrea Volterra, University of Lausanne.
But why? The researchers aren’t sure why the brain needs glutamatergic astrocytes when it already has neurons, but Volterra suspects the hybrid brain cells may help with the distribution of signals — a single astrocyte can be in contact with thousands of synapses.
“Often, we have neuronal information that needs to spread to larger ensembles, and neurons are not very good for the coordination of this,” researcher Ludovic Telley told New Scientist.
Looking ahead: More research is needed to see how the new brain cell functions in people, but the discovery that it plays a role in memory in mice suggests it might be a worthwhile target for Alzheimer’s disease treatments.
The researchers also found evidence during their study that the cell might play a role in brain circuits linked to seizures and voluntary movements, meaning it’s also a new lead in the hunt for better epilepsy and Parkinson’s treatments.
“Our next studies will explore the potential protective role of this type of cell against memory impairment in Alzheimer’s disease, as well as its role in other regions and pathologies than those explored here,” said Volterra.
