Mind reading: Spatial patterns of brain activity decode what people taste
2015-03-12
(Press-News.org) This news release is available in German.
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."
INFORMATION:
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.
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
2015-03-12
Light can be used to activate normal, non-genetically modified neurons through the use of targeted gold nanoparticles, report scientists from the University of Chicago and the University of Illinois at Chicago. The new technique, described in the journal Neuron on March 12, represents a significant technological advance with potential advantages over current optogenetic methods, including possible use in the development of therapeutics toward diseases such as macular degeneration.
"This is effectively optogenetics without genetics," said study senior author Francisco ...
2015-03-12
Many animals, including humans, acquired essential 'foreign' genes from microorganisms co-habiting their environment in ancient times, according to research published in the open access journal Genome Biology. The study challenges conventional views that animal evolution relies solely on genes passed down through ancestral lines, suggesting that, at least in some lineages, the process is still ongoing.
The transfer of genes between organisms living in the same environment is known as horizontal gene transfer (HGT). It is well known in single-celled organisms and thought ...
2015-03-12
Findings from a new study that set out to investigate the evolution of immune defences could boost the development of industrial bacteria that are immune to specific viral infections. The study is published today in the journal Current Biology.
Bacteria have many industrial uses including the production of cheese and yoghurt, paper making, biogas and the synthetic production of hormones like insulin. Viral infections of these bacterial cultures can halt production processes resulting in significant financial cost.
Dr Edze Westra from the Environment and Sustainability ...
2015-03-12
LA JOLLA--For infants with severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID), something as simple as a common cold or ear infection can be fatal. Born with an incomplete immune system, kids who have SCID--also known as "bubble boy" or "bubble baby" disease--can't fight off even the mildest of germs. They often have to live in sterile, isolated environments to avoid infections and, even then, most patients don't live past a year or two. This happens because stem cells in SCID patients' bone marrow have a genetic mutation that prevents them from developing critical immune cells, called ...
2015-03-12
In a new study, published in Cell Reports, researchers at Uppsala University describe a novel mechanism by which lymphatic vessels form during embryonic development. The finding may open new possibilities for repairing damaged lymphatic vessels using stem cells.
Olof Rudbeck, professor of medicine at Uppsala University, discovered the lymphatic vascular system in the 17th century. A research group at the institute bearing his name, the Rudbeck Laboratory at Uppsala University, has now discovered a novel origin of the lymphatic system.
The prevailing textbook knowledge ...
2015-03-12
In 1953 Watson and Crick first published the discovery of the double helix structure of the DNA. They were able to visualize the DNA structure by means of X-Ray diffraction. Techniques, such as electron microscopy, allowed scientists to identify nucleosomes, the first and most basic level of chromosome organisation. Until now it was known that our DNA is packaged by regular repeating units of those nucleosomes throughout the genome giving rise to chromatin. However, due to the lack of suitable techniques and instruments, the chromatin organisation inside a cell nucleus ...
2015-03-12
An extensive database identifying immune traits, such as how immune cell function is regulated at the genetic level in healthy people, is reported by researchers from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and their collaborators in the journal Cell. While many genetic risk factors have been linked to various diseases, including autoimmune disorders, how a genetic change causes susceptibility to a disease is not always clear. By studying healthy people, researchers from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) Vaccine Research Center, part of the ...
2015-03-12
Ponds in the Arctic tundra are shrinking and slowly disappearing, according to a new study by University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) researchers.
More than 2,800 Arctic tundra ponds in the northern region of Alaska's Barrow Peninsula were analyzed using historical photos and satellite images taken between 1948 and 2010. Over the 62-year period, the researchers found that the number of ponds in the region had decreased by about 17 percent, while pond size had shrunk by an average of one-third.
"The 17 percent is a very conservative estimate because we didn't consider ...
2015-03-12
Being discriminated against by the healthcare profession or system can cause much more than just mere distress to older people. Such experiences can literally be bad for their health. A national survey shows that one in every three older Americans who are on the receiving end of age-related discrimination in the healthcare setting will likely develop new or worsened functional ailments in due course. This follows a study1 led by Stephanie Rogers, a fellow in geriatrics at UC San Francisco in the United States, and published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine2, ...
2015-03-12
NEW YORK, NY -Where you receive medical care impacts many things - including whether or not you receive inappropriate medical tests, according to a new study.
Researchers from NYU Langone Medical Center and its Laura and Isaac Perlmutter Cancer Center, in a new retrospective study publishing online March 12th in JAMA Oncology, conclude that patients with low-risk prostate or breast cancer were more likely to receive inappropriate imaging during treatment, based on the region of the country in which they received medical care.
They examined medical records from 2004-2007 ...
LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:
[Press-News.org] Mind reading: Spatial patterns of brain activity decode what people taste
