Thermal taster status: Temperature modulation of cortical response to sweetness perception

Eldeghaidy, Sally; Yang, Qian; Abualait, Turki; Williamson, Anne-Marie; Hort, Joanne; Francis, Susan T.

Abstract

© 2020 Temperature is known to impact taste perception, but its reported effect on sweet taste perception in humans is inconsistent. Here, we assess whether thermal taste phenotype alters the temperature modulation of the brains’ response to sweet samples and sweet taste perception. Participants (n = 24 balanced for thermal tasters (TT) and thermal non-tasters (TnT), 25 ± 7 years (mean ± SD), 10 males) underwent a thermal taste phenotyping session to study responses to cooling and warming of the tongue using a thermode. In a separate session, functional Magnetic Resonance Images (fMRI) were collected during sweet samples (87 mM sucrose) delivery at two temperatures (‘cold’ (5 ± 2 °C) and ‘ambient’ (20 ± 2 °C)) and the perceived sweetness intensity rated.In the phenotyping session, TTs had heightened perceptual temperature sensitivity to cooling and warming of the tongue using a thermode compared to TnTs. Although there was no significant effect during the fMRI session, the fMRI response to the ‘cold sweet’ sample across all participants was significantly increased in anterior insula/frontal operculum and mid-insula compared to the ‘ambient sweet’ sample, likely to reflect the perceptual difference to temperature rather than taste perception. TTs showed significantly increased fMRI activation patterns compared with TnTs and an interaction effect between thermal taster status and sample temperature, with TTs showing selectively greater cortical responses to ‘cold sweet’ samples compared to TnTs in somatosensory regions (SI and SII).The increase in cortical activation in somatosensory cortices to the ‘cold sweet’ stimulus correlated with perceptual ratings of temperature sensitivity to the thermode. The results highlight the importance of investigating the effects of thermal taster phenotype across a range of temperatures representing the reality of consumer consumption to beverages.

Citation

Eldeghaidy, S., Yang, Q., Abualait, T., Williamson, A.-M., Hort, J., & Francis, S. T. (2021). Thermal taster status: Temperature modulation of cortical response to sweetness perception. Physiology and Behavior, 230, Article 113266. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.physbeh.2020.113266

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Nov 21, 2020
• Online Publication Date: Nov 24, 2020
• Publication Date: Mar 1, 2021
• Deposit Date: Nov 29, 2020
• Publicly Available Date: Nov 25, 2021
• Journal: Physiology & Behavior
• Electronic ISSN: 0031-9384
• Publisher: Elsevier
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 230
• Article Number: 113266
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.physbeh.2020.113266
• Keywords: fMRI, Thermal taster status, Insula, Oral somatosensory, SweetnessTemperature
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/5090550
• Publisher URL: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0031938420305801?dgcid=rss_sd_all
• Additional Information: This article is maintained by: Elsevier; Article Title: Thermal taster status: Temperature modulation of cortical response to sweetness perception; Journal Title: Physiology & Behavior; CrossRef DOI link to publisher maintained version: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.physbeh.2020.113266; Content Type: article; Copyright: © 2020 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc.