This title appears in the Scientific Report :
2018
Please use the identifier:
http://hdl.handle.net/2128/19826 in citations.
Please use the identifier: http://dx.doi.org/10.1523/ENEURO.0269-18.2018 in citations.
As soon as you taste it – evidence for sequential and parallel processing of gustatory information
As soon as you taste it – evidence for sequential and parallel processing of gustatory information
The quick and reliable detection and identification of a tastant in the mouth regulate nutrient uptake and toxin expulsion. Consistent with the pivotal role of the gustatory system, taste category information (e.g. sweet, salty) is represented during the earliest phase of the taste-evoked cortical r...
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Personal Name(s): | Wallroth, Raphael |
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Ohla, Kathrin (Corresponding author) | |
Contributing Institute: |
Kognitive Neurowissenschaften; INM-3 |
Published in: | eNeuro (2018) S. ENEURO.0269-18.2018 - |
Imprint: |
Washington, DC
Soc.
2018
|
PubMed ID: |
30406187 |
DOI: |
10.1523/ENEURO.0269-18.2018 |
Document Type: |
Journal Article |
Research Program: |
(Dys-)function and Plasticity |
Link: |
OpenAccess OpenAccess |
Publikationsportal JuSER |
Please use the identifier: http://dx.doi.org/10.1523/ENEURO.0269-18.2018 in citations.
The quick and reliable detection and identification of a tastant in the mouth regulate nutrient uptake and toxin expulsion. Consistent with the pivotal role of the gustatory system, taste category information (e.g. sweet, salty) is represented during the earliest phase of the taste-evoked cortical response (Crouzet et al., 2015) and different tastes are perceived and responded to within only a few hundred milliseconds, in rodents (Perez et al., 2013) and humans (Bujas, 1935). Currently, it is unknown whether taste detection and discrimination are sequential or parallel processes, i.e. whether you know what it is as soon as you taste it. To investigate the sequence of processing steps involved in taste perceptual decisions, participants tasted sour, salty, bitter, and sweet solutions and performed a taste-detection and a taste-discrimination task. We measured response times and 64-channel scalp electrophysiological recordings, and tested the link between the timing of behavioral decisions and the timing of neural taste representations determined with multivariate pattern analyses. Irrespective of taste and task, neural decoding onset and behavioral response times were strongly related, demonstrating that differences between taste judgments are reflected early during chemosensory encoding. Neural and behavioral detection times were faster for the iso-hedonic salty and sour tastes than their discrimination time. No such latency difference was observed for sweet and bitter, which differ hedonically. Together, these results indicate that the human gustatory system detects a taste faster than it discriminates between tastes, yet hedonic computations may run in parallel (Perez et al., 2013) and facilitate taste identification. |