Opioid Misuse Risk: Implementing Screening Protocols in an Ambulatory Oncology Clinic.

With morbidity and mortality related to opioid use continuing to increase, clinicians need to better understand the risk for opioid misuse in patient populations. Screening for opioid misuse risk has not been routinely adopted as a standard practice in clinical settings. A pilot study was performed to determine the feasibility of screening for future opioid misuse risk using the Opioid Risk Tool (ORT) in an ambulatory oncology clinic.

The insular taste cortex contributes to odor quality coding.

Despite distinct peripheral and central pathways, stimulation of both the olfactory and the gustatory systems may give rise to the sensation of sweetness. Whether there is a common central mechanism producing sweet quality sensations or two discrete mechanisms associated independently with gustatory and olfactory stimuli is currently unknown. Here we used fMRI to determine whether odor sweetness is represented in the piriform olfactory cortex, which is thought to code odor quality, or in the insular taste cortex, which is thought to code taste quality.