Spared and impaired olfactory abilities after thalamic lesions.

Full Abstract

Olfactory information reaches olfactory cortex without a thalamic relay. This neuroanatomical substrate has combined with functional findings to suggest that, in olfaction, the typical thalamic role in sensory processing has shifted to the olfactory bulb or olfactory cortex. With this in mind, we set out to ask whether the thalamus at all plays a significant functional role in human olfaction. We tested olfactory function in 17 patients with unilateral focal thalamic lesions and in age-matched healthy controls. We found that thalamic lesions did not significantly influence olfactory detection but significantly impaired olfactory identification, and only right lesions altered olfactory hedonics by reducing the pleasantness of pleasant odors. An auditory control revealed that this shift in pleasantness was olfactory specific. These olfactory impairments were evident in explicit measures of perception, as well as in patterns of sniffing. Whereas healthy subjects modulated their sniffs in accordance with odorant content, thalamic patients did not. We conclude that, although the thalamus is not in the path of olfactory information from periphery to cortex, it nevertheless plays a significant functional role in human olfaction.

Author information

Author/s: Sela, Lee (L); Sacher, Yaron (Y); Serfaty, Corinne (C); Yeshurun, Yaara (Y); Soroker, Nachum (N); Sobel, Noam (N);

Affiliation: Department of Neurobiology, The Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot 76100, Israel. lee.sela(-atsign-)weizmann.ac.il

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Comparative Study; Journal Article; Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

Journal: The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience (J Neurosci), published in United States. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2009-Sep; vol 29 (issue 39) : pp 12059-69

Dates: Created 2009/10/01; Completed 2009/10/13;

PMID: 19793964, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 10/13/2009, IMS Date: )

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