Localization of the primary taste cortex by contrasting passive and attentive conditions
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RESEARCH ARTICLE
Localization of the primary taste cortex by contrasting passive and attentive conditions Yuko Nakamura · Kenji Tokumori · Hiroki C. Tanabe · Takashi Yoshiura · Koji Kobayashi · Yasuhiko Nakamura · Hiroshi Honda · Kazunori Yoshiura · Tazuko K. Goto
Received: 3 December 2012 / Accepted: 22 March 2013 / Published online: 19 April 2013 © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2013
Abstract The primary taste cortex is located in the insula. However, exactly where in the insula the human primary taste cortex is located remains a controversial issue. Human neuroimaging studies have shown prominent variation concerning the location of taste-responsive activation within the insula. A standard protocol for gustatory testing in neuroimaging studies has not been developed, which might underlie such variations. In order to localize the primary taste cortex in an fMRI experiment, we used a taste delivery system to suppress non-taste stimuli and psychological effects. Then, we compared brain response to taste solution during a passive tasting task condition and a taste quality identification task condition to verify whether this cognitive task affected the location of taste-responsive activation within the insula. To examine which part of insula is the primary taste area,
we performed dynamic causal modeling (DCM) to verify the neural network of the taste coding-related region and random-effects Bayesian model selection (BMS) at the family level to reveal the optimal input region. Passive tasting resulted in activation of the right middle insula (MI), and the most favorable model selected by DCM analysis showed that taste effect directly influenced the MI. Additionally, BMS results at the family level suggested that the taste inputs entered into the MI. Taken together, our results suggest that the human primary taste cortex is located in the MI. Keywords Primary taste cortex · Taste coding · Functional MRI · Top-down influence
Introduction Y. Nakamura (*) · K. Tokumori · K. Yoshiura Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Radiology, Faculty of Dental Science, Kyushu University, 3-1-1, Maidashi, Higashi-ku, Fukuoka 812-8582, Japan e-mail: [email protected] H. C. Tanabe Division of Psychology, Department of Social and Human Environment, Graduate School of Environmental Studies, Nagoya University, Nagoya, Japan T. Yoshiura · H. Honda Department of Clinical Radiology, Graduate School of Medical Sciences, Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Japan K. Kobayashi · Y. Nakamura Department of Medical Technology, Kyushu University Hospital, Fukuoka, Japan T. K. Goto Oral Radiology, Oral Diagnosis and Polyclinics, Faculty of Dentistry, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China
Primary taste cortex is located in the insula. In primates, the taste pathways project directly from the nucleus of the solitary tract to the taste thalamus, and further on to the primary taste cortex in the anterior insula (AI) (Pritchard 2011). In humans, which part of insula is the primary taste cortex remains unclear. If the human ins
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