Food Intake Decisions

Functional Magnetic resonance study on the effect of cognitive context variables on the perception and valuation of food odorants and flavor. The study is composed of two experiments; in a first experiment we address the question of how valuation of food odors are modulated by 3 cognitive conditions (indulgence, healthy, and neutral). Food odors are delivered using a custom-made olfactometer. Here we hypothesize that cognitive regulation can modulate the primary sensory processing of food odors. We expect that cortical regions related with valuation and cognitive regulation such as the ventromedial prefrontal cortex and the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex operate the modulation of primary olfactory cortex and amygdala. In a second experiment, we aim to reveal the brain areas involved in integrating food color cues with odor and taste stimuli. Here we hypothesize that color cues are capable of biasing flavor attributes of food (flavor intensity), and that this bias occurs at different cortical areas commonly associate with multisensory integration such as the orbitofrontal cortex, insula, amygdala and hippocampus.