The study reveals how the brain interprets certain aromas as a taste

Flavored sugar -free drinks can be considered sweets – and now the researchers know why. A new study by Karolinska Institutet in Sweden, published in the magazine Nature communicationsIt reveals that the brain interprets certain aromas as a taste.

When we eat or drink, we not only experience a taste, but rather a “taste”. This trial experience results from a combination of taste and odor, where the aromas of food reach the nose through the oral cavity, known as fluid. Researchers at the Karolinska Institutet have now shown that the brain incorporates these signals earlier than it had previously been considered – already on the islet, an area of ​​the brain known as the taste bark – before the signals reach the frontal cortex, which controls our emotions and behavior.

We saw that the taste bark reacts to flavor -related aromas as if they were real preferences. The finding provides a possible explanation of why we sometimes experience a taste of the smell alone, for example in flavored waters. This emphasizes how strongly the odors and tastes work together to make food enjoyable, they may cause longing and encourage the over -consumption of certain foods. “

Putu Agus Khorisantono, Head writer, researcher in the Department of Clinical Neuroscience, Karolinska Institutet

The study included 25 healthy adults who were first taught to recognize both a sweet taste and a salty taste through flavor and smell combinations. Two brain imaging sessions followed using a functional magnetic resonance imaging (FMRI), in which participants received either a tasteless aroma or a taste without smell. The researchers trained an algorithm to identify standards in brain activity for sweet and savory preferences and then examined whether the same standards could be identified when participants received only perfumes.

May be relevant to our eating habits

The results have shown that aromas that are considered sweet or salty not only activate the same parts of the brain flavor with real tastes but that they cause similar activation patterns. This coating was particularly evident in the parts of the flavor bark associated with the incorporation of sensory impressions.

“This shows that the brain does not process the taste and smell separately, but it creates a common representation of the taste experience in the taste bark,” says the latest study author, Janina Seubert, a senior researcher in the same department at the Karolinska Institutet. “This mechanism can be relevant to how our eating habits are shaped and affected.”

Researchers are now planning to explore whether the same mechanism applies to external scents, known as orthodox odors.

“We want to know if the activation pattern in the brain flavor is changing from salty to sweets when we walk from the runway cheese to the pastries in the supermarket,” says Putu Agus Khorisantono. “If so, this could have a significant impact on the foods we choose to consume.”

The study was conducted in collaboration with researchers in Turkey and was funded by the European Research Council (ERC) and the Swedish Research Council.