Selective attention to affective value alters how the brain processes taste stimuli

Grabenhorst, F., & Rolls, E. T. (2008). Selective attention to affective value alters how the brain processes taste stimuli. European Journal of Neuroscience, 27(3), 723-729. Retrieved October 11, 2011, from Academic Search Premier. doi:10.1111/j.1460-9568.2008.06033.x

This study was conducted in order to determine how  selective attention to affect influences sensory processing.  Within this study there were six males and six females with ages ranging from 21 to 35. Past studies indicate that the primary taste cortex is located in the anterior insula in humans.  Taste neurons are recorded and found  in the exact insular and opercular cortex and are project forward into the orbitofrontal cortex the site in which humans activations to taste are located. Subjects were told to remember and rate the pleasantness of a taste stimulus which was 0.1 m monosodium glutamate, their activations were higher  in the medial orbitofrontal and pregenual cingulate cortex . Their activations were lower when they were told  to remember and rate the taste intensity level.  However, activations were higher in the insular taste cortex when the participants were told to remember and rate the intensity.  There was significance when the taste process was dissociated, depending upon the relevance of their focus on pleasantness or intensity. This study showed that the brain responds to taste differently depending upon whether affect is significant and also upon the situation in which the subjects are asked to taste. Thus, when focus is given to the affect, the brain engages differently when it is representing the sensory stimulus of taste than when attention is given to the physical characteristics, such as intensity, of a stimulus.