summary: Researchers are delving into the complexity of taste and its effects on the brain. Their goal is to understand how the brain processes sensations such as the sweet delights of desserts and the burn of hot peppers.
The team found that taste and touch can stimulate the same neurons in the midbrain. This intriguing overlap alludes to the brain’s ‘multitasking’ ability, in which a limited number of cells perform multiple functions.
By investigating the interactions of taste and touch, and the emotional responses they elicit, this five-year project sheds light on the fundamental principles of brain organization and may lead to insights into health and disease. I hope
Important facts:
- Taste is a complex neurological experience that evokes a variety of neural activities, such as the pleasure derived from tasting sweets, but our understanding of its role in guiding eating behavior and its function in the brain is incomplete. It’s raw.
- There are significant gaps in our knowledge of how taste and flavor preferences develop and evolve over time, which this project aims to address.
- This study combines molecular, genetic, and neurophysiological tests to examine the organization of brain circuits that support the intersection of taste and touch, and how these circuits operate to influence behavior.
sauce: University of Oklahoma
Taste is a complex neurological experience that can provide extensive and perhaps surprising information about how the brain understands sensations and organizes brain pathways.
A research project funded by the National Institutes of Health, led by Christian H. Lemmon, Ph.D., associate professor in the Department of Biology at the Dodge Family College of Arts and Sciences, will better understand how the brain processes taste. It is intended to And how those neural pathways can evolve.
Taste is associated with various neural activities, such as the pleasure of tasting sweets. Taste is part of flavor, including the pain you experience when tasting hot peppers. However, there are gaps in our knowledge of how taste and flavor preferences develop and evolve over time.
“Taste is the building block of flavor. , and we don’t fully understand how it functions in guiding eating behavior, nor how it functions in the body’s brain,” Lemmon said.
The project builds on findings made by Lemon’s research group when studying a part of the brain where taste can excite neurons in the midbrain region.
Importantly, many other senses from different parts of the body are processed by the same neural sites, and preliminary data suggests that someone’s senses can activate brain cells that are excited by taste. doing.
By pinpointing how neurons receive gustatory and tactile signals, Lemon’s research provides a better picture of how these integrations occur and whether they reflect emotional correlations. Hope to understand better.
“Basically, there is a part of the brain that takes in sensory information from almost the entire body, and taste is one part of it.
“Essentially, we want to understand how taste is mapped to this part of the brain. If we can understand this, we may be able to learn more about taste.” How the taste system and other senses are organized, and why there seems to be neural overlap between them.
Lemmon believes this neural correlation may be evidence of the brain’s “multitasking,” which utilizes a limited number of brain cells to perform multiple functions in the body.
Past research suggests that there are patterns in the way these brain signals combine, which Lemmon believes reflect the emotions evoked by different senses.
“The new grant study will combine molecular, genetic and neurophysiological tests to examine the organization of brain circuits that support the intersection of taste and touch and how these circuits influence behavior. ” he said.
Through this five-year project, Lemon aims to better understand how and why these signals come together, and to further define the fundamental organizational principles of the brain related to health and disease. increase.
Funding: The project, Taste and Somatosensory Processing, will receive $1.9 million in funding from the US Department of Health and Human Services at the National Institutes of Health. 2R01DC011579-12A1.
About this neuroscience research news
author: Chelsea Julian
sauce: University of Oklahoma
contact: Chelsea Julian – University of Oklahoma
image: Image credited to Neuroscience News
