Localisation of unilateral nasal stimuli across sensory systems

Abstract

Odor stimuli presented to one nostril can only be localised if they additionally activate the trigeminal nerve's chemosensitive fibers. In this study we aimed to investigate characteristics in the localisation of unilateral trigeminal, olfactory and somatosensory nasal stimuli. We compared the ability of healthy young subjects to localise monorhinally presented (a) pure olfactory stimuli (phenyl ethyl alcohol), (b) mixed olfactory trigeminal stimuli (eucalyptol), and (c) somatosensory stimuli (air puffs). As expected, subjects could localise the air puffs and eucalyptol, but could not phenyl ethyl alcohol. Interestingly, we observed a significant correlation between localisation performance for eucalyptol and phenyl ethyl alcohol but not between the ability to localise somatosensory and trigeminal or olfactory stimuli. These observations show that on a behavioural level, the trigeminal chemosensory system is more intimately connected to the olfactory system than to the somatosensory system despite the fact that anatomically its information is conveyed via same nerve as the latter. Furthermore, they show that the trigeminal chemosensory system should therefore be considered a self-confined contributor to chemosensory perception.