Professor Don Katz’s lab is interested in learning and behavior related to the gustatory system (the sense of taste). In a new paper in Journal of Neuroscience, also covered by the Washington Post website, Katz and postdoc Joost Maier together with Univ. of Utah professor Matt Wachowiak, studied how tastes affect the processing of odors.
When any animal eats, it both smells and tastes the food, and has to make a split-second decision — is it nutritious or poisonous? Do I swallow it or spit it out? Accordingly, there has to be a processing system in the brain to integrate the information and make rapid decisions. It has been known for some time that odors affect the processing of taste in gustatory cortex. In the new article, the researchers demonstrate the effects of taste inputs on olfactory cortex. According to Maier, “this means is that the different senses are really interacting with each other at a much earlier level than previously thought,”.
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“Tongues help noses smell food, and vice versa” (Washington Post)
- Maier JX, Wachowiak M, Katz DB. Chemosensory convergence on primary olfactory cortex. J Neurosci. 2012;32(48):17037-47.
