Back in November 2024, we were absolutely thrilled to share some incredible news. After years of dedicated work – led by Professor Maurice Curtis and neurobiologist Dr. Victoria Low, along with a talented team of collaborators – their groundbreaking research was finally published in the prestigious international journal Communications Biology.
What makes this so huge? For the first time ever, our scientists have created a detailed, interactive 3D model of the entire human olfactory system – the structures in your nasal cavity responsible for your sense of smell, including how those nerves project directly into the brain.
Why does this matter for Parkinson’s disease? We know that loss of smell is often one of the very earliest signs of the disease – sometimes appearing years before tremors or movement issues. Many researchers believe the changes start right here, in the nose and olfactory pathway, long before they reach deeper brain regions. But until now, we simply didn’t have a clear, accurate map of what a healthy human olfactory system actually looks like in three dimensions.
Thanks to funding support from Cure Parkinson’s NZ – including multi-year backing for Dr. Low’s position – Professor Curtis’s team at the University of Auckland’s Centre for Brain Research tackled this challenge head-on. Dr. Low carefully prepared and stained thousands of ultra-thin slices of donated human olfactory tissue. Collaborators in Germany digitised those slices with cutting-edge automated microscopy. Then, experts at the university’s Bioengineering Institute used artificial intelligence and supercomputing power to reconstruct everything into a stunning, explorable 3D visualisation.
This isn’t just a pretty picture – it’s a foundational tool that researchers and clinicians around the world can now use to study early Parkinson’s changes, test new theories, develop better diagnostics, and ultimately accelerate progress toward therapies that slow or stop the disease.
In this video, we’ll walk you through this remarkable discovery and explain why this breakthrough could be a real game-changer for the Parkinson’s community.
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