Mind Reading: Spatial Patterns Of Brain Activity Decode What People Taste
Potsdam-Rehbruecke, Germany (March 12th 2015) -- A team of researchers from the German Institute of Human Nutrition in Potsdam and the Charité University Hospital in Berlin have revealed how taste is encoded in patterns of neural activity in the human brain. Kathrin Ohla, the lead researcher on the team, said: “The ability to taste is crucial for food choice and the formation of food preferences. Impairments in taste perception or hedonic experience of taste can cause deviant eating behavior, and may lead to mal- or supernutrition. Our research aims to extend the understanding of the neuronal mechanisms of taste perception and valuation. This knowledge is essential for the development of strategies to moderate deviant eating behavior.” The study was published in Current Biology.
Tastants in the mouth activate specific receptors on the tongue corresponding to each of the basic tastes: sweet, salty, sour, bitter, and savory (umami). The signal is then transduced further to the brain. How the peripheral signal is used by the central nervous system to encode taste quality is largely unknown.
In the study, participants discriminated between sweet, salty, sour, and bitter tastants while their brain activity was recorded with electroencephalography (EEG), a method that measures minuscule electrical signals generated by billions of neurons in the human neocortex with millisecond resolution. Different tastes evoked different dynamic patterns of electrical activity. A machine learning algorithm could be trained to discriminate between these patterns. Thus, given a piece of data, the algorithm could decode from the pattern of brain-wide activity which taste a participant had received in that moment. This form of “mind reading” even made it possible to decode which of four tastants participants thought to have tasted when they were, in fact, incorrect: tastes that participants frequently confused with each other (e.g. sour and salty) were also frequently confused by the algorithm.
Kathrin Ohla said: “We were surprised to find that the onset of this decoding coincided with the earliest taste-evoked responses, within only 175 milliseconds, suggesting that quality is among the first attributes of a taste represented in the central gustatory system.”
Niko Busch adds: “In future studies, we will go a step further and try to decipher from neural activity how pleasurable a taste was in addition to its category. This would be an important step to understanding how individual taste preferences are coded in the brain and of high relevance for clinical applications such as weight loss programs.”
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Journal Reference:
Sébastien M. Crouzet, Niko A. Busch and Kathrin Ohla: Taste Quality Decoding Parallels Taste Sensations, Current Biology (2015, DOI 10.1016/j.cub.2015.01.057).
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2015.01.057
Contact:
Dr. Kathrin Ohla
Psychophysiology of Food Perception
German Institute of Human Nutrition
Potsdam-Rehbruecke (DIfE)
Arthur-Scheunert-Allee 114-116
14558 Nuthetal, Germany
Tel.: +49 33200 88-2543
E-Mail: kathrin.ohla@dife.de
Dr. Gisela Olias
Senior Press Officer
German Institute of Human Nutrition
Potsdam-Rehbruecke (DIfE)
Arthur-Scheunert-Allee 114-116
14558 Nuthetal, Germany
Tel.: +49 33200 88-2278/-2335
E-Mail: olias@dife.de
oder presse@dife.de
http://www.dife.de
The German Institute of Human Nutrition (DIfE) is a member of the Leibniz Association. It explores the causes of nutrition-related diseases to develop new strategies for prevention, treatment and dietary recommendations. The research interests of the DIfE are obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular diseases and cancer. More at http://www.dife.de.
The Leibniz Association comprises 89 institutions conducting application-oriented basic research and providing scientific infrastructure. In total, around 17,500 people work for Leibniz institutions - including 8,800 scientists and researchers - with an annual budget of nearly EUR 1.5 billion. The Leibniz Association is characterized by the diversity of research topics and disciplines in which it is engaged. The research museums of the Leibniz Association preserve and explore the natural and cultural heritage. They are also the showcase of research as well as places of learning and fascination for science. Research in the Leibniz institutes is interdisciplinary and involves application-oriented basic research. The institutes’ work is of national significance and is funded jointly by the German federal government and the federal states (German Länder). More at http://www.leibniz-gemeinschaft.de.
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