Bilateral hypogeusia and food aversion due to lacunar infarct in the right dorsomedial pontine tegmentum

ABSTRACT

A 70-year-old right-handed housewife suffered an acute loss of taste, an unpleasant change in the taste of foods and liquids, and a strong aversion to all kinds of food due to a small lacune in the right dorsomedial pontine tegmentum. Eating became so unpleasant that she lost 7 kg in three weeks. Olfaction and the sensibility of the tongue were spared. The right medial longitudinal fascicle, the central tegmental tract, or both, were injured by the tegmental lesion. A discrete right-sided lesion in the upper pontine tegmentum may cause a reversible syndrome consisting of bilateral hypogeusia which is more severe ipsilaterally.

KEYWORDS:

• Ageusia
• central taste pathways
• parageusia
• central tegmental tract
• medial longitudinal fascicle

Acknowledgements

RO-S is indebted to Professor Omar da Rosa Santos (Gaffrée e Guinle University Hospital) for institutional support, and Mr. Jorge Baçal (in memoriam) and Mr. José Ricardo Pinheiro for librarian assistance (Oswaldo Cruz Institute, Rio de Janeiro).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/13554794.2024.2353391

Data availability statement

All data supporting the findings of this study are available within the article. Besides, all tests and inventories employed in the present investigation are described and can be found here (https://osf.io/cx968/). Legal restrictions prevent public archiving of some tests, which can be obtained from the copyright holders in the cited references. No part of the study procedures or analysis plans was preregistered prior to the research being conducted. Because this is a longitudinal study of a single case, sample size, data exclusions, inclusion/exclusion criteria do not apply.

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Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.