Age differences in the brain mechanisms of good taste
- PMID: 25842291
- PMCID: PMC6529355
- DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2015.03.065
Age differences in the brain mechanisms of good taste
Abstract
There is strong evidence demonstrating age-related differences in the acceptability of foods and beverages. To examine the neural foundations underlying these age-related differences in the acceptability of different flavors and foods, we performed an fMRI study to investigate brain and hedonic responses to orange juice, orange soda, and vegetable juice in three different age groups: Young (22), Middle (40) and Elderly (60 years). Orange juice and orange soda were found to be liked by all age groups, while vegetable juice was disliked by the Young, but liked by the Elderly. In the insular primary taste cortex, the activations to these stimuli were similar in the 3 age groups, indicating that the differences in liking for these stimuli between the 3 groups were not represented in this first stage of cortical taste processing. In the agranular insula (anterior to the insular primary taste cortex) where flavor is represented, the activations to the stimuli were similar in the Elderly, but in the Young the activations were larger to the vegetable juice than to the orange drinks; and the activations here were correlated with the unpleasantness of the stimuli. In the anterior midcingulate cortex, investigated as a site where the activations were correlated with the unpleasantness of the stimuli, there was again a greater activation to the vegetable than to the orange stimuli in the Young but not in the Elderly. In the amygdala (and orbitofrontal cortex), investigated as sites where the activations were correlated with the pleasantness of the stimuli, there was a smaller activation to the vegetable than to the orange stimuli in the Young but not in the Elderly. The Middle group was intermediate with respect to the separation of their activations to the stimuli in the brain areas that represent the pleasantness or unpleasantness of flavors. Thus age differences in the activations to different flavors can in some brain areas be related to, and probably cause, the differences in pleasantness of foods as they differ for people of different ages. This novel work provides a foundation for understanding the underlying neural bases for differences in food acceptability between age groups.
Keywords: Cingulate cortex; Cognitive modulation; Flavor; Food; Orbitofrontal cortex; Reward; Taste; fMRI.
Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Figures
![Fig. 1](https://cdn.statically.io/img/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/instance/6529355/bin/EMS82964-f001.gif)
![Fig. 2](https://cdn.statically.io/img/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/instance/6529355/bin/EMS82964-f002.gif)
![Fig. 3](https://cdn.statically.io/img/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/instance/6529355/bin/EMS82964-f003.gif)
![Fig. 4](https://cdn.statically.io/img/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/instance/6529355/bin/EMS82964-f004.gif)
![Fig. 5](https://cdn.statically.io/img/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/instance/6529355/bin/EMS82964-f005.gif)
![Fig. 6](https://cdn.statically.io/img/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/instance/6529355/bin/EMS82964-f006.gif)
![Fig. 7](https://cdn.statically.io/img/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/instance/6529355/bin/EMS82964-f007.gif)
Similar articles
-
Taste-olfactory convergence, and the representation of the pleasantness of flavour, in the human brain.Eur J Neurosci. 2003 Oct;18(7):2059-68. doi: 10.1046/j.1460-9568.2003.02915.x. Eur J Neurosci. 2003. PMID: 14622239
-
To like or not to like: neural substrates of subjective flavor preferences.Behav Brain Res. 2014 Aug 1;269:128-37. doi: 10.1016/j.bbr.2014.04.010. Epub 2014 Apr 15. Behav Brain Res. 2014. PMID: 24742863
-
Sensory perception and pleasantness of food flavors in elderly subjects.J Gerontol. 1994 May;49(3):P93-9. doi: 10.1093/geronj/49.3.p93. J Gerontol. 1994. PMID: 8169344
-
Taste and smell processing in the brain.Handb Clin Neurol. 2019;164:97-118. doi: 10.1016/B978-0-444-63855-7.00007-1. Handb Clin Neurol. 2019. PMID: 31604566 Review.
-
Functions of the orbitofrontal and pregenual cingulate cortex in taste, olfaction, appetite and emotion.Acta Physiol Hung. 2008 Jun;95(2):131-64. doi: 10.1556/APhysiol.95.2008.2.1. Acta Physiol Hung. 2008. PMID: 18642756 Review.
Cited by
-
Lifestyle risks associated with brain functional connectivity and structure.Hum Brain Mapp. 2023 Apr 15;44(6):2479-2492. doi: 10.1002/hbm.26225. Epub 2023 Feb 17. Hum Brain Mapp. 2023. PMID: 36799566 Free PMC article.
-
The human posterior parietal cortex: effective connectome, and its relation to function.Cereb Cortex. 2023 Mar 10;33(6):3142-3170. doi: 10.1093/cercor/bhac266. Cereb Cortex. 2023. PMID: 35834902 Free PMC article.
-
Much Ado About Missingness: A Demonstration of Full Information Maximum Likelihood Estimation to Address Missingness in Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Data.Front Neurosci. 2021 Sep 30;15:746424. doi: 10.3389/fnins.2021.746424. eCollection 2021. Front Neurosci. 2021. PMID: 34658780 Free PMC article.
-
Rapid Rule-Based Reward Reversal and the Lateral Orbitofrontal Cortex.Cereb Cortex Commun. 2020 Nov 17;1(1):tgaa087. doi: 10.1093/texcom/tgaa087. eCollection 2020. Cereb Cortex Commun. 2020. PMID: 34296143 Free PMC article.
-
The orbitofrontal cortex, food reward, body weight and obesity.Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci. 2023 Feb 6;18(1):nsab044. doi: 10.1093/scan/nsab044. Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci. 2023. PMID: 33830272 Free PMC article.
References
-
- Birch LL. Development of food preferences. Annu Rev Nutr. 1999;19:41–62. - PubMed
-
- Booth DA. Food-conditioned eating preferences and aversions with interoceptive elements: learned appetites and satieties. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences. 1985;443:22–37. - PubMed
-
- Collins DL, Neelin P, Peters TM, Evans AC. Automatic 3D intersubject registration of MR volumetric data in standardized Talairach space. J Comput Assist Tomogr. 1994;18:192–205. - PubMed
-
- de Araujo IET, Kringelbach ML, Rolls ET, Hobden P. The representation of umami taste in the human brain. J Neurophysiol. 2003a;90:313–319. - PubMed
Publication types
MeSH terms
Grants and funding
LinkOut - more resources
Full Text Sources
Other Literature Sources
Medical