Activation of Human Prefrontal Cortex to Pleasant and Aversive Taste Using Functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy

Chenghong Hu, Yoshiko Kato, Zhiwei Luo

Graduate School of Human Development and Environment, Kobe University, Kobe, Japan..
Graduate School of System Informatics, Kobe University, Kobe, Japan.

DOI: 10.4236/fns.2014.52029                

Abstract

The aim of the study was to investigate the representation of taste in human prefrontal cortex (PFC), in particular, to compare the representation of a pleasant and an aversive taste using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS), so as to obtain further understanding of the taste preference mechanism. The pleasant stimulus used was sweet taste (10% sucrose), and the unpleasant stimulus was sour taste (1% critic acid). Based on event-related design, the experiments were performed with 16 healthy volunteers using the OEG-16 fNIRS sensor. A general linear model was used to analyze the collected data. For the concentration change of oxygenated hemoglobin (ΔoxyHb), we found that significant deactivation was induced by sweetness and sourness in parts of the frontopolar area, orbitofrontal area and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex in bilateral hemisphere of human brain. And the right PFC showed different levels of activation between sweetness and sourness. In addition, brain activities were more sensitive to sourness than sweetness. Finally, we confirmed that the PFC was involved in sweet and sour taste processing, and fNIRS provided an alternative way for studying taste-related brain function under more natural conditions.

Keywords

fNIRS; Gustatory; Sweetness; Sourness; Prefrontal Cortex

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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