Dynamics of nasal irritation from pulsed homologous alcohols

The Effect of Stimulus Duration on the Nostril Localization of Eucalyptol

The trigeminal system is a chemosensory system participating in the perception of most odorants, which allows for the perception of diverse sensations including the freshness of eucalyptus or the spiciness of pepper. The lateralization task, that is, the identification of the stimulated nostril in a monorhinal stimulation paradigm is only possible following trigeminal stimulation and allows therefore for the assessment of the trigeminal sensitivity also in a clinical setting. In this study, we aimed to determine the effects of the duration of stimuli on the lateralization task. To this end, we asked 32 young and healthy subjects perform the lateralization task while being exposed to eucalyptol stimuli ranging between 100 and 1250 ms. We found that participants performed on average at chance for stimuli shorter than 500 ms, and observed increasing accuracy for stimuli with longer durations. In conclusion, these data suggest that 500 ms represents a threshold for the lateralization of eucalyptol stimuli. Therefore, when trigeminal sensitivity is tested in a clinical setting, eucalyptol stimuli should have a duration of at least 500 ms.

Nasal-to-CNS drug delivery: where are we now and where are we heading? An industrial perspective

Delivery of drug therapeutics across the blood-brain barrier is a challenging task for pharmaceutical scientists. Nasal-to-CNS drug delivery has shown promising results in preclinical efficacy models and investigatory human clinical trials. The further development of this technology with respect to the establishment of valid, predictable preclinical species models, translatable pharmacokinetic-pharmacodynamic relationships and definition of toxicology impact will help attract additional pharmaceutical investment in this drug-delivery approach. Further discoveries in nasal nanotechnology, targeted delivery devices and diagnostic olfactory imaging will serve to fuel the advancements in this area of drug delivery.