Olfactory Memory in Patients with Anterior Temporal Lobectomy

Abstract

Right and left temporal lobectomy patients, matched in age and intelligence, made more errors in odor recall than a control group. Patients with right temporal lobe excisions recalled significantly fewer odors correctly than patients with left temporal lobe excisions. Olfactory memory scores were not related to other memory deficits associated with left or right temporal lobe dysfunction or to intelligence or lesion size. However, in patients with right temporal lobectomy, percent of odors recalled correctly correlated positively with a general memory index. The findings presented are consistent with previous reports that the right temporal lobe is more involved with nonverbal memory than the left temporal lobe.

Right-nostril advantage for discrimination of odors

“…Several authors have reported findings suggesting that right temporal-lobe or orbitofrontallesions lead to more marked deficits than do similar lesions in the left hemisphere in odor matching or recognition tasks (Abraham & Mathai, 1983;Jones-Gotman & Zatorre, 1988a;Rausch, Serafetinides, & Crandall, 1977). On the other hand, neither Eskenazi and colleagues (Eskenazi, Cain, Novelly, & Friend, 1983;Eskenazi et al, 1986) nor Jones-Gotman and Zatorre (l988b) reported significant differences related to side of excision in several other 01-factory tasks.…”

A Specific Role for the Human Amygdala in Olfactory Memory

“…Results from studies on the effects of lateralized temporal lobe damage on odor memory, however, have been mixed, with some work showing a specific impairment following right temporal lobectomy (Rausch et al 1977), but other studies showing equivalent impairment in left and right sided lobectomy patients (Henkin et al 1977;Eskenazi et al 1983Eskenazi et al , 1986Dade et al 2002). Most recently, Dade et al (2002) have shown that both right and left-sided temporal lobectomy patients are equally impaired in an odor recognition paradigm including three different condtions, (1) after a single odor exposure, (2) after four odor exposures, and (3) after a 24-h delay interval.…”

“…Some authors have suggested a preferential role of the right temporal cortex in olfactory memory (Rausch et al 1977)-in line with a material-specific advantage of the left hemisphere for verbal memory and the right hemisphere for nonverbal memory (Dobbins et al 1998;Buchanan et al 2001). In contrast, Henkin and colleagues described a study in which left temporal excision resulted in greater impairment in olfactory recognition than did right-sided damage (Henkin et al 1977).…”

“…Importantly, none of the patients were impaired on an auditory verbal learning task, suggesting that these findings reflect a specific impairment in olfactory memory, and not merely a more general memory deficit. Taken together, the data provide neuropsychological evidence that the human amygdala is essential for olfactory memory.Considerable research has illustrated a role for the anteromesial temporal lobes in several aspects of olfactory processing, including odor detection (Rausch and Serafetinides 1975;Eichenbaum et al 1983), discrimination (Abraham and Mathai 1983), and memory (Rausch et al 1977;Martinez et al 1993;Dade et al 2002). Some authors have suggested a preferential role of the right temporal cortex in olfactory memory (Rausch et al 1977)-in line with a material-specific advantage of the left hemisphere for verbal memory and the right hemisphere for nonverbal memory (Dobbins et al 1998;Buchanan et al 2001).…”

Olfactory loss in alcoholics: Correlations with cortical and subcortical MRI indices

“…Hippocampal damage also compromises olfactory discrimination in rats, but only if the task includes the simultaneous presentation of two stimuli (5)(6)(7)26). Human studies have indicated that patients with focal brain lesions involving orbitofrontal (21,28,37) or anterior temporal cortex (8,10,21,30,37) are impaired on odor identification and discrimination tasks. In contrast, those patients with cortical lesions confined to occipital or parietal regions demonstrate intact olfactory abilities (37).…”