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Extensive research suggests that COVID-19 infection can lead to persistent changes in taste and smell perception. These sensory changes have the potential to exert lasting impacts on dietary choices, nutrition, and body weight. This study aims to explore COVID-related shifts in dietary intake among New Zealand university students. We conducted a survey involving 340 university students who had experienced COVID-19 infection between 2022 and 2023. Participants reported any changes in eating behavior since before the pandemic and were asked to complete a 24-h food record. Participants’ total daily energy intake, macronutrient intake, and composition were then compared with data collected from a similar cohort before the COVID-19 pandemic, spanning from 2017 to 2019. Dietary outcomes were compared using MANCOVA while controlling for individual age, gender, ethnicity, and BMI. Approximately 25% of participants reported experiencing sensory alterations with COVID-19, with those participants more likely to report changes in their experience of sweet tastes but not salty or fatty foods. Analyses of the pre- and post-COVID cohorts revealed that participants in the post-COVID group exhibited significantly higher consumption of protein and sodium. Understanding the long-term impact of COVID-19 infection may offer crucial insights into the role of chemosensory perception in dietary behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sexual dysfunction can be caused by impaired neurotransmission from the peripheral to the central nervous system. Therefore, it is important to evaluate the input of sensory information from the peripheral genital area and investigate the control mechanisms in the spinal cord to clarify the pathological basis of sensory abnormalities in the genital area. However, an in vivo evaluation system for the spinal cord–penile neurotransmission mechanism has not yet been developed. Here, urethane-anesthetized rats were used to evaluate neuronal firing induced by innocuous or nociceptive stimulation of the penis using extracellular recording or patch-clamp techniques in the lumbosacral spinal dorsal horn and electrophysiological evaluation in the peripheral pelvic nerves. As a result, innocuous and nociceptive stimuli-evoked neuronal firing was successfully recorded in the deep and superficial spinal dorsal horns, respectively. The innocuous stimuli-evoked nerve firing was also recorded in the pelvic nerve. These firings were suppressed by lidocaine. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report of a successful quantitative evaluation of penile stimuli-evoked neuronal firing. This method is not only useful for analyzing the pathological basis of spinal cord–penile neurotransmission in sexual dysfunction but also provides a useful evaluation system in the search for new treatments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]