Current Science

Open Access Open Access  Restricted Access Subscription Access

Neuroanatomical Correlates of Perceiving the Intensity and Pleasantness of Intense Saltiness in Healthy Subjects


Affiliations
1 Oral and Maxillofacial Radiology, Applied Oral Sciences, Faculty of Dentistry, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China
 

Reducing excessive dietary salt is beneficial to human health. Various taste-related brain regions are activated upon taste reception. However, it is unknown if their structural volumes would also influence taste perception. This study aimed to examine if grey matter volume would correlate with intensity or pleasantness scores given by participants after tasting an intense salty taste solution. We recruited 34 healthy human adults. They tasted 2 ml of 0.5 M sodium chloride solution and underwent magnetic resonance imaging to record their brain structures. By voxelbased morphometry, the amygdala, thalamus, insula and orbitofrontal cortex were structurally correlated to tasting.

Keywords

Grey Matter Volume, Human Health, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Salty Taste, Voxel-Based Morphometry.
User
Notifications
Font Size

  • Aburto, N. J., Ziolkovska, A., Hooper, L., Elliott, P., Cappuccio, F. P. and Meerpohl, J. J., Effect of lower sodium intake on health: systematic review and meta-analyses. Br. Med. J., 2013, 346, f1326.

  • Mozaffarian, D. et al., Global sodium consumption and death from cardiovascular causes. N. Engl. J. Med., 2014, 371, 624-634.

  • Goto, T. K., Yeung, A. W. K., Tanabe, H. C., Ito, Y., Jung, H.-S. and Ninomiya, Y., Enhancement of combined umami and salty taste by glutathione in the human tongue and brain. Chem. Senses, 2016, 41, 623-630.

  • O’Doherty, J., Rolls, E. T., Francis, S., Bowtell, R. and McGlone, F., Representation of pleasant and aversive taste in the human brain. J. Neurophysiol., 2001, 85, 1315-1321.

  • Zald, D. H., Lee, J. T., Fluegel, K. W. and Pardo, J. V., Aversive gustatory stimulation activates limbic circuits in humans. Brain, 1998, 121, 1143-1154.

  • Yeung, A. W. K., Tanabe, H. C., Suen, J. L. K. and Goto, T. K., Taste intensity modulates effective connectivity from the insular cortex to the thalamus in humans. Neuroimage, 2016, 135, 214- 222.

  • Yeung, A. W. K., Goto, T. K. and Leung, W. K., Basic taste processing recruits bilateral anteroventral and middle dorsal insulae: an activation likelihood estimation meta-analysis of fMRI studies. Brain Behav., 2017, 7, e00655.

  • Yeung, A. W. K., Goto, T. K. and Leung, W. K., Affective value, intensity and quality of liquid tastants/food discernment in the human brain: an activation likelihood estimation meta-analysis. Neuroimage, 2018, 169, 189-199.

  • Spetter, M., Smeets, P., de Graaf, C. and Viergever, M., Representation of sweet and salty taste intensity in the brain. Chem. Senses, 2010, 35, 831-840.

  • Bezzola, L., Mérillat, S., Gaser, C. and Jäncke, L., Traininginduced neural plasticity in golf novices. J. Neurosci., 2011, 31, 12444-12448.

  • Maguire, E. A., Gadian, D. G., Johnsrude, I. S., Good, C. D., Ashburner, J., Frackowiak, R. S. and Frith, C. D., Navigation-related structural change in the hippocampi of taxi drivers. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 2000, 97, 4398-4403.

  • Ashburner, J. and Friston, K. J., Voxel-based morphometry - the methods. Neuroimage, 2000, 11, 805-821.

  • Seubert, J., Freiherr, J., Frasnelli, J., Hummel, T. and Lundström, J. N., Orbitofrontal cortex and olfactory bulb volume predict distinct aspects of olfactory performance in healthy subjects. Cereb. Cortex, 2013, 23, 2448-2456.

  • Frasnelli, J., Lundström, J. N., Boyle, J. A., Djordjevic, J., Zatorre, R. J. and Jones-Gotman, M., Neuroanatomical correlates of olfactory performance. Exp. Brain Res., 2010, 201, 1-11.

  • Bitter, T., Gudziol, H., Burmeister, H. P., Mentzel, H.-J., GuntinasLichius, O. and Gaser, C., Anosmia leads to a loss of gray matter in cortical brain areas. Chem. Senses, 2010, 35, 407-415.

  • Yao, L., Pinto, J. M., Yi, X., Li, L., Peng, P. and Wei, Y., Gray matter volume reduction of olfactory cortices in patients with idiopathic olfactory loss. Chem. Senses, 2014, bju047.

  • Oldfield, R. C., The assessment and analysis of handedness: the Edinburgh inventory. Neuropsychologia, 1971, 9, 97-113.

  • Bolhuis, D. P., Lakemond, C. M., de Wijk, R. A., Luning, P. A. and de Graaf, C., Effect of salt intensity on ad libitum intake of tomato soup similar in palatability and on salt preference after consumption. Chem. Senses, 2010, 35, 789-799.

  • Small, D. M., Gregory, M. D., Mak, Y. E., Gitelman, D., Mesulam, M. M. and Parrish, T., Dissociation of neural representation of intensity and affective valuation in human gustation. Neuron, 2003, 39, 701-711.

  • Ashburner, J., A fast diffeomorphic image registration algorithm. Neuroimage, 2007, 38, 95-113.

  • Iannilli, E., Singh, P. B., Schuster, B., Gerber, J. and Hummel, T., Taste laterality studied by means of umami and salt stimuli: an fMRI study. Neuroimage, 2012, 60, 426-435.

  • Maldjian, J. A., Laurienti, P. J. and Burdette, J. H., Precentral gyrus discrepancy in electronic versions of the Talairach atlas. Neuroimage, 2004, 21, 450-455.

  • Maldjian, J. A., Laurienti, P. J., Kraft, R. A. and Burdette, J. H., An automated method for neuroanatomic and cytoarchitectonic atlas-based interrogation of fMRI data sets. Neuroimage, 2003, 19, 1233-1239.

  • Tzourio-Mazoyer, N. et al., Automated anatomical labeling of activations in SPM using a macroscopic anatomical parcellation of the MNI MRI single-subject brain. Neuroimage, 2002, 15, 273- 289.

  • Mak, Y. E., Simmons, K. B., Gitelman, D. R. and Small, D. M., Taste and olfactory intensity perception changes following left insular stroke. Behav. Neurosci., 2005, 119, 1693.

  • Pritchard, T. C., Macaluso, D. A. and Eslinger, P. J., Taste perception in patients with insular cortex lesions. Behav. Neurosci., 1999, 113, 663.

  • Zald, D. H., The human amygdala and the emotional evaluation of sensory stimuli. Brain Res. Rev., 2003, 41, 88-123.

  • Omura, K., Constable, R. T. and Canli, T., Amygdala gray matter concentration is associated with extraversion and neuroticism. Neuroreport., 2005, 16, 1905-1908.

  • Pezawas, L. et al., 5-HTTLPR polymorphism impacts human cingulate-amygdala interactions: a genetic susceptibility mechanism for depression. Nature Neurosci., 2005, 8, 828-834.

  • De Araujo, I. E., Rolls, E. T., Kringelbach, M. L., McGlone, F. and Phillips, N., Taste-olfactory convergence, and the representation of the pleasantness of flavour, in the human brain. Eur. J. Neurosci., 2003, 18, 2059-2068.

  • Small, D. M., Bender, G., Veldhuizen, M. G., Rudenga, K., Nachtigal, D. and Felsted, J., The role of the human orbitofrontal cortex in taste and flavor processing. Ann. N.Y. Acad. Sci., 2007, 1121, 136-151.

  • O’Doherty, J. P., Deichmann, R., Critchley, H. D. and Dolan, R. J., Neural responses during anticipation of a primary taste reward. Neuron, 2002, 33, 815-826.

  • Dalenberg, J. R., Hoogeveen, H. R., Renken, R. J., Langers, D. R. and ter Horst, G. J., Functional specialization of the male insula during taste perception. Neuroimage, 2015, 119, 210-220.


Abstract Views: 359

PDF Views: 124




  • Neuroanatomical Correlates of Perceiving the Intensity and Pleasantness of Intense Saltiness in Healthy Subjects

Abstract Views: 359  |  PDF Views: 124

Authors

Andy Wai Kan Yeung
Oral and Maxillofacial Radiology, Applied Oral Sciences, Faculty of Dentistry, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China

Abstract


Reducing excessive dietary salt is beneficial to human health. Various taste-related brain regions are activated upon taste reception. However, it is unknown if their structural volumes would also influence taste perception. This study aimed to examine if grey matter volume would correlate with intensity or pleasantness scores given by participants after tasting an intense salty taste solution. We recruited 34 healthy human adults. They tasted 2 ml of 0.5 M sodium chloride solution and underwent magnetic resonance imaging to record their brain structures. By voxelbased morphometry, the amygdala, thalamus, insula and orbitofrontal cortex were structurally correlated to tasting.

Keywords


Grey Matter Volume, Human Health, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Salty Taste, Voxel-Based Morphometry.

References





DOI: https://doi.org/10.18520/cs%2Fv116%2Fi1%2F69-74