Taste dysfunction in multiple sclerosis

• Published in: Journal of neurology Vol. 263; no. 4; pp. 677 - 688
• Main Authors: Doty, Richard L., Tourbier, Isabelle A., Pham, Dzung L., Cuzzocreo, Jennifer L., Udupa, Jayaram K., Karacali, Bilge, Beals, Evan, Fabius, Laura, Leon-Sarmiento, Fidias E., Moonis, Gul, Kim, Taehoon, Mihama, Toru, Geckle, Rena J., Yousem, David M.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Berlin/Heidelberg Springer Berlin Heidelberg 01-04-2016; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Adult; Brain; Brain - pathology; Caffeine; Female; Humans; Magnetic Resonance Imaging; Male; Medicine; Medicine & Public Health; Middle Aged; Multiple sclerosis; Multiple Sclerosis - complications; Multiple Sclerosis - pathology; Neurology; Neuroradiology; Neurosciences; Original Communication; Sucrose; Taste disorders; Taste Disorders - epidemiology; Taste Disorders - etiology; Tongue; United States > US; Baltimore Maryland; Sex differences; Multiple sclerosis; Taste; Magnetic resonance imaging; Taste disorders; Chemosensory transduction
• ISSN: 0340-5354; 1432-1459
• DOI: 10.1007/s00415-016-8030-6

Empirical studies of taste function in multiple sclerosis (MS) are rare. Moreover, a detailed assessment of whether quantitative measures of taste function correlate with the punctate and patchy myelin-related lesions found throughout the CNS of MS patients has not been made. We administered a 96-trial test of sweet (sucrose), sour (citric acid), bitter (caffeine) and salty (NaCl) taste perception to the left and right anterior (CN VII) and posterior (CN IX) tongue regions of 73 MS patients and 73 matched controls. The number and volume of lesions were assessed using quantitative MRI in 52 brain regions of 63 of the MS patients. Taste identification scores were significantly lower in the MS patients for sucrose (
p
 = 0.0002), citric acid (
p
 = 0.0001), caffeine (
p
 = 0.0372) and NaCl (
p
 = 0.0004) and were present in both anterior and posterior tongue regions. The percent of MS patients with identification scores falling below the 5th percentile of controls was 15.07 % for caffeine, 21.9 % for citric acid, 24.66 % for sucrose, and 31.50 % for NaCl. Such scores were inversely correlated with lesion
volumes
in the temporal, medial frontal, and superior frontal lobes, and with the
number
of lesions in the left and right superior frontal lobes, right anterior cingulate gyrus, and left parietal operculum. Regardless of the subject group, women outperformed men on the taste measures. These findings indicate that a sizable number of MS patients exhibit taste deficits that are associated with MS-related lesions throughout the brain.