Unlike somatic sensory dysfunction, taste dysfunction was present contralaterally, ipsilaterally and bilaterally to the lesion.
In rodents, the cranial nerves that subserve taste function converge to the nucleus tractus solitarius. Second order gustatory fibers then ascend ipsilaterally towards the pons where the crossing taste fibers form a synapse in the pontine parabrachial nucleus and project to the contralateral thalamus.