Chemosensory Loss during a Traumatic Brain Injury Suggests a Central Pathway for the Rehabilitation of Anosmia.

Currently, no method has been developed for rehabilitating olfaction in anosmic patients following a traumatic brain injury (TBI). Here a method for rehabilitation is described which is based on a recent finding that the human posterior pyriform cortex (PPC) generates predictive odor "search images" in advance of an encounter with an olfactory stimulus. The search image enhances perceptual sensitivity and allows the odor it represents to be identified without input occurring from the olfactory receptors or bulbs.

Taste-Elicited Activity in Facial Muscle Regions in 5-8-Week-Old Infants.

The state of development of the sense of taste in humans during the first few months of life is only partially understood. Since taste plays a critical role in the feeding and nutrition of infants a better understanding of taste development during early life is required. Currently, information about the sense of taste in pre-verbal infants is obtained by analysis of videotaped facial expressions using the Baby FACS coding system.

Smell and Taste Disorders Resulting from Cancer and Chemotherapy.

Malnutrition is common in both adult and pediatric patients undergoing treatment for cancer. Patients commonly attribute difficulties maintaining food intake to an altered taste developed during treatment. This review summarizes what is known about taste and smell dysfunction in patients with undergoing chemotherapy as their main treatment modality.

Reduced taste function and taste papillae density in children with chronic kidney disease.

Background: Taste loss may contribute to the loss of appetite in children with chronic kidney disease (CKD) and other serious medical conditions that result in malnutrition. Traditional methods for measurement of taste loss commonly use aqueous tastant solutions that can induce nausea, vomiting, or even pain in the mouth. An alternative is to measure fungiform papillae density on the anterior tongue since this correlates with taste sensitivity.

Taste and smell dysfunction in childhood cancer survivors.

Introduction: Reduced or altered taste and smell function may occur as a side-effect of cancer therapy. This can lead to altered nutrient and energy intake. Some studies have suggested that taste and smell dysfunction can persist many years after treatment completion but this has not been previously assessed in survivors of childhood cancer.

Changes in fungiform papillae density during development in humans.

The anterior region of the human tongue ceases to grow by 8-10 years of age and the posterior region at 15-16 years. This study was conducted with 30 adults and 85 children (7-12 year olds) to determine whether the cessation of growth in the anterior tongue coincides with the stabilization of the number and distribution of fungiform papillae (FP) on this region of the tongue. This is important for understanding when the human sense of taste becomes adult in function.

Chemosensory function and food preferences of children with cystic fibrosis.

A major problem for patients with cystic fibrosis (CF) is the maintenance of adequate nutrition to maintain normal growth. The hypotheses that poor nutrition could be due to smell and/or taste dysfunction has been pursued in several studies with contradictory results. None, however, investigated whether inadequate nutrition is due to CF patients having different liking for foods compared to healthy children and whether liking can be linked to specific changes in smell or taste function.

Smell and taste function in children with chronic kidney disease.

Loss of appetite and poor growth are common in children with chronic kidney disease (CKD), and changes in smell and/or taste function may be responsible, but the hypothesis has not been proven. This aims of this prospective age- and gender-controlled study were to determine whether: (1) changes in smell and taste function occur in children with CKD; (2) smell or taste dysfunction are associated with estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR); (3) there is an association between smell or taste loss and body mass index (BMI). The study cohort consisted of 72 children of whom 20 were CKD stage 3-5 patients, 12 were CKD stage 2 patients, 20 were clinical controls (CC) and 20 were healthy children (HC).

Temporal processing of olfactory stimuli during retronasal perception.

Odorants can be perceived via the nose during an inhalation or sniff (orthonasal perception) and via the mouth, nasopharynx and nasal cavity during mastication or drinking (retronasal perception). Previous data suggest that orthonasal perception provides a more efficient route with greater difficulty being reported when detecting [Halpern BP. Retronasal and orthonasal smelling.

Tests for screening olfactory and gustatory function in school-age children.

Objective: Determine the suitability of three tests based on the identification of familiar odors and tastes for the clinical assessment of olfaction and gustation in children.

Study Design And Setting: A total of 232 children aged 5 to 7 years from Sydney public schools and 56 adults aged 18 to 51 years participated in a cross-sectional study.

Results: The children demonstrated they can identify the majority of the 16 test odorants and 4 common tastes that describe gustatory function.

Olfactory function in Australian aboriginal children and chronic otitis media.

Chronic suppurative otitis media (CSOM), a severe form of middle ear infection, affects most Australian Aboriginal children with up to 50% in some communities suffering hearing loss as a consequence. To date, there is no information on whether repeated exposure to the pathogens that characterize CSOM and that are present in the upper respiratory airway affect olfactory function. Accordingly, this study aimed to determine whether 1) there was a high prevalence of olfactory loss in Aboriginal children and 2) hearing loss is a predictor of olfactory loss.

Facial electromyography: responses of children to odor and taste stimuli.

The study investigated the potential for facial electromyography (EMG) to be used as a clinical tool for measuring the responses of children to pleasant and unpleasant smell and taste stimuli. Responses in the zygomaticus major and levator labii muscles to 4 odorants and 4 tastants were recorded from 34 children aged 6-9 years. The results indicated that EMG activities in the 2 muscles discriminated between pleasant and unpleasant stimuli within each modality in a manner that indicated that the children perceived the hedonic qualities of the stimuli in a manner similar to that reported for adults.

Olfactory function in children assessed with psychophysical and electrophysiological techniques.

The olfactory information processing abilities of children undergo changes during early life. The aims of the present study were to describe these changes and to probe for their electrophysiological correlates. These aims were investigated in two experiments.

Asymmetric suppression of components in binary aldehyde mixtures: behavioral studies in the laboratory rat.

The aim of the present study was to assess component interaction in the perception of the 2 aldehydes butanal and heptanal when presented in binary mixtures to rats. A further aim was to develop a behavioral paradigm for testing suppression of components in mixtures using rodent subjects. Thirsty rats were initially trained to discriminate between the 2 aldehydes butanal and heptanal in an olfactometer using a go/no-go discrimination task.

The capacity of humans to identify components in complex odor-taste mixtures.

Despite the fact that humans experience mixtures of odors and tastes each time they eat, little is known of their capacity to detect the individual components of foods. To investigate this capacity, 43 subjects were trained to identify three odors and three tastes and were required to indicate which of these could be identified in stimuli consisting of one to six components. Although the odor and taste components of most binary mixtures were identified, subjects encountered substantial difficulties with more complex mixtures with only two components being identified in the four- to six-component mixtures.

Rapid quantitative assessment of fungiform papillae density in the human tongue.

Fungiform papillae density, which can be used in a variety of circumstances as an indicator of taste function [L.M. Bartoshuk, V.

Perception of temporal order and the identification of components in taste mixtures.

The capacity of humans to identify the components of taste mixtures is limited to 3 for most people [D.G. Laing, C.

Temporal perception of sweetness by adults and children using computerized time-intensity measures.

There is a general paucity of knowledge of the cognitive and perceptual abilities of children to successfully undertake chemosensory-related tasks. An example is that there are no reports of temporal perception by children in time-intensity tasks, or how their responses in these tasks compare with those of adults. The latter paradigm has the potential to reveal differences that may occur during a normal eating or drinking episode that cannot be detected with single response measures.

A quantitative study of fungiform papillae and taste pore density in adults and children.

Male children (8-9 years) are reported to have a higher sensitivity than male adults to the sweet tastant sucrose when small regions of the anterior tongue are stimulated. The present study investigated the hypothesis that the higher sensitivity was due to a greater density of fungiform papillae and taste pores (buds), since it has been reported in adults that increased densities of these two structures correlates with increased taste suprathreshold sensitivity [Physiol. Behav.

The limited capacity of humans to identify the components of taste mixtures and taste-odour mixtures.

The capacity of humans to identify the components of taste mixtures and odour-taste mixtures was investigated in two experiments. Subjects were trained to identify the components presented alone and to use a 'yes/no' procedure to identify them in mixtures. All stimuli were presented with a retronasal (by mouth) technique.

Taste development: differential growth rates of tongue regions in humans.

There is a paucity of information about the anatomical and functional development of the human gustatory system. Although the anatomical development of the taste-sensitive fungiform, circumvallate and foliate papillae in the respective anterior, posterior and latero-posterior regions of the dorsal surface of the tongue has been well documented in the fetus, there is limited information about how these regions grow and when they exhibit adult function. The present study is concerned with determining when the growth of one of these taste-sensitive regions becomes adult in size, namely, the anterior region, and how this growth compares with that of the remaining posterior region.