There is a new, I guess, area of research looking at the possibility that this is an area where infections may get into the brain through this particular mechanism. So either infecting the nerve itself or somehow getting through that cribiform plate into the brain and then even looking at conditions like say Alzheimer's disease,. Anyway, that's a side point. A knock to the head can actually shift the plate and shear off those neurons and lose somebody's sense of smell - surface anosmia.