A new study published on 2 April in Naturedigs in how the brain tastes on disease connecting and revealing a process that reflects human reactions to diseases transferred by food.
Under the leadership of Christopher Zimmerman and Ilana Witten, both of the Neuroscience Institute of Princeton University, the research investigates how mice learn to avoid harmful food based on delayed intestinal signals.
With the title ‘A neural mechanism for learning delayed most posting feedback’, the study emphasizes the Amygdala – a brain area linked to emotion and memory – as a key to conditioned tastea version (CFA). Mice developed strong aversions of flavors, such as sweetened grape cabbage AID, after a single link with gastrointestinal malaise caused by lithium chloride (LICL). Well -known flavors did not lead to the same rejection, even when followed by malaise. This one-shot learning continued to exist despite hours between consumption and illness, just like how people can avoid food after a rough attack of nausea.
Zimmerman, Witten and their team discovered that new flavors activate a network of Amygdala regions while eating, Malaise and later collect memory. With the help of recordings with high density and optogenetic stimulation, they found that malaisgeval of the calcitonin-gen-related peptide (CGRP) of the rear brain of the rear brain and reactivate these taste presentations in the Amygdala. The stronger this reactivation, the deeper the aversion, the neural reminder of the offensive taste stabilizes. Without unexpected intestinal feedback, they faded flavor.
Insights into food safety
The study shows why new foods are popping up stronger aversions than well -known. The raised reaction of the brain to unknown flavors reinforces reactions in combination with malaise, a pattern that is seen in mice and probably also people. Brain -wide imaging via light microscopy has indicated the unique role of the amygdala on consumption, illness and recall. The research also underlines the intestinal brain connection: postingest signals of digestion stimulate this learning, in favor of nutritious foods and rejecting toxic.
Animals, including people, rely on CFAs to avoid harmful food, refined a survival trick by evolution. The researchers note that this process is “essential to survive – nutritual food is valuable, while toxic food can be deadly.” The look of the study in the taste machines of the brain reveals how a single bad experience can reform our relationship with food and offers a window in a mechanism that is just as instinctive as complicated.
The full study can be Found here.
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