Abstracts - Association for Chemoreception Sciences

#P63 POSTER SESSION II:
OLFACTION DEVELOPMENT; TASTE CNS;
NEUROIMAGING; OLFACTION CNS
#P64 POSTER SESSION II:
OLFACTION DEVELOPMENT; TASTE CNS;
NEUROIMAGING; OLFACTION CNS
Is the Superior Temporal Sulcus involved in the Reinforced
Configural Processing of a Binary Odor Mixture?
Charlotte Sinding 1,2 , Gérard Coureaud 1 , Noëlle Béno 1 , Elodie Le Berre 1 ,
Cornelia Hummel 2 , John Prescott 3 , Moustafa Bensafi 4 ,
Thomas Hummel 2 , Thierry Thomas-Danguin 1
1
Centre des Sciences du Goût et de l’Alimentation (CSGA), UMR 6265
CNRS, UMR 1324 INRA, Université de Bourgogne, Developmental
Ethology and Cognitive Psychology Team and Flavour Perception
Team Dijon, France, 2 Smell & Taste Clinic, Department of
Otorhinolaryngology, University of Dresden Medical School Dresden,
Germany, 3 TasteMatters Research & Consulting Sydney, Australia,
4
Centre de Recherche en Neurosciences de Lyon, UMR5020 CNRS,
Université Lyon 1, Neurosciences Sensorielles Comportement Cognition
Lyon, France
In macaque monkeys the superior temporal sulcus (STS)
projects to the orbitofrontal cortex which projects to the
primary olfactory cortex (Carmichael and Price 1995). These
connections are believed to be reciprocal, therefore the STS is
supposed to receive inputs from olfactory areas. Kettenmann
et al. (1996) showed that STS was activated when participants
were stimulated with monomolecular odors. This area is also
specifically activated for configural visual processing, as during
the perception of body motion (Thompson et al. 2005). In the
present study, we investigated the configural processing of odor
mixtures in human adults. We repeatedly exposed (2 sessions of
11 exposures) healthy volunteers (n=12, G AB
) to a binary mixture
(AB) configurally processed (blending of the two components’
odors into a single pineapple odor), while others (n=14, G compo
)
were exposed to the separate components, A (“strawberry”)
and B (“caramel”). To equilibrate the number of exposures in
the two groups, G AB
was also exposed to PEA (monomolecular,
“rose”). Such exposures were known to favor the perception of
the AB configuration in G AB
and the perception of the elements
in G compo
(Sinding et al. 2011, in preparation). Two days after
the pre-exposure, all subjects received an fMRI while stimulated
by AB, A, B and PEA. As a major result, the STS appeared
significantly more activated for the processing of the AB mixture
in G AB
than in G compo
. The STS was also more activated for the
processing of AB as compared to A and B, in G AB
. The STS was
not significantly activated in G compo
for any stimulation, in any
contrast. These results suggest that the STS is a critical area for
the reinforced configural processing of simple odorant mixtures.
However, PEA also activated significantly the STS in G AB
in
comparison to G compo
. Acknowledgements: Supported by grants
from the Burgundy Regional council and EU-ERDF to GC and
TTD, European Dijon-Dresden Laboratory (LEA 549) to TH,
GC, TTD, and a fellowship from the French MESR to CS.
Association of Pleasantness and Intensity of Sweet and
Salty Taste in the Human Brain
Jianli Wang 1 , Sebastian Rupprecht 1 , Zachary Mosher 1 ,
Robert Mchugh 1 , Jeffrey Vesek 1 , Sarah Ryan 1 , Megha Vasavada 1 ,
Qing X. Yang 1,2 , Andras Hajnal 3,4 , Ann M. Rogers 4
1
Penn State College of Medicine/Radiology Hershey, PA, USA,
2
Penn State College of Medicine/Neurosurgery Hershey, PA, USA,
3
Penn State College of Medicine/Neural & Behavioral Sciences Hershey,
PA, USA, 4 Penn State College of Medicine/Surgery Hershey, PA, USA
An abnormal assessment of pleasantness and intensity of
tastants can lead to negative, long-term health conditions.
Among these, obesity may be a consequence of diminished
sensitivity to sweet tastes, leading to amplified cravings and
associated weight gains. An understanding of the neural
processes of taste perception is essential for elucidating this
disease state. Unfortunately, studies on the human brain are
limited, and thus the majority of neural taste function knowledge
stems from animal studies. These studies have shown that
hedonic and intensity information is encoded in the primary
gustatory cortex, with neuronal firing correlated with stimulation
intensity. Seeking to confirm animal models in the human
brain, this study utilized fMRI to study BOLD signal changes
in response to varied concentrations of sweet and salty taste
stimulants. Normal, healthy volunteers (n=11) completed a
total of fifteen taste fMRI studies in which brain response to an
event-related taste stimulation paradigm was correlated with
perceived ratings of both pleasantness and intensity. The data
indicate a positive correlation between pleasantness and intensity
for sweet tastants; while a negative correlation was observed for
salty tastants. Each triggered significant activation in the primary
and secondary gustatory cortices including: bilateral anterior
insular cortex, posterior orbitofrontal cortex, cingulated cortex,
and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. BOLD signals in these regions
were significantly correlated with both hedonic and intensity
ratings from subjects. Overall these results show that the human
brain processes hedonic and intensity information of sweet and
salty taste through similar neural networks previously seen in
animal models.
POSTER PRESENTATIONS
Abstracts are printed as submitted by the author(s).
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