Measuring and Characterizing the Human Nasal Cycle

Roni Kahana-Zweig, Maya Geva-Sagiv, Aharon Weissbrod, Lavi Secundo, Nachum Soroker and Noam Sobel

PLOS ONE, 2016, vol. 11, issue 10, 1-28

Abstract: Nasal airflow is greater in one nostril than in the other because of transient asymmetric nasal passage obstruction by erectile tissue. The extent of obstruction alternates across nostrils with periodicity referred to as the nasal cycle. The nasal cycle is related to autonomic arousal and is indicative of asymmetry in brain function. Moreover, alterations in nasal cycle periodicity have been linked to various diseases. There is therefore need for a tool allowing continuous accurate measurement and recording of airflow in each nostril separately. Here we provide detailed instructions for constructing such a tool at minimal cost and effort. We demonstrate application of the tool in 33 right-handed healthy subjects, and derive several statistical measures for nasal cycle characterization. Using these measures applied to 24-hour recordings we observed that: 1: subjects spent slightly longer in left over right nostril dominance (left = 2.63 ± 0.89 hours, right = 2.17 ± 0.89 hours, t(32) = 2.07, p

Date: 2016
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:plo:pone00:0162918

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0162918

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