Billions of dollars are spent annually, by both consumers and producers, on fine food, wines and perfumes. A good dinner is a pleasure that may be long remembered, while smell and taste can bring back long forgotten memories stretching back to childhood, as was immortalized by Marcel Proust's description. Why is this? What brain pathways do these products activate? How are these engaged areas of the brain connected with the memory system? Are there pleasure centers in the brain that are specifically devoted to taste and smell? What criteria do chefs, wine makers, and parfumers - as artists - use to judge that their products will have appeal? These questions, of interest to such artists as well as to their patrons, will be addressed at this year's meeting on Neuroesthetics.

Part 1

Chairperson: Semir Zeki

"There is no accounting for flavour without having first experienced it"

 

The chemical senses (taste and smell) are unique because they are represented in brain regions specialized not only for sensory representation but also for the formation of memories.   As such, experience may be expected to play a significant role in determining neural and perceptual responses to chemosensory stimuli.  In this lecture I will present data demonstrating the fundamental role of ingestive experience in determining perceptual and neural response to flavor and aroma. In essence, I will argue that there is no accounting for flavor without having first experienced it.

"The Phenomenology of Terroir"

The Notion of Terroir. What is soil intelligence? Why is terroir important? The New World and Old World Understanding of Vinous Beauty. Terroir as "somewhereness": Is this synesthesia? Wine and the primate brain. What happens on the palate in a terroir wine? How can we visualize terroir? (more synesthesia!)

Part 2

Chairperson: Ivanka Savic

"Comparing Pepsi to Picasso: neural valuation responses to aesthetic and consummatory preference"

Human preferences for food and drink navigate a large part of our ongoing decision-making. Humans will reorganize their days around desires for particular food or drink, and the experiences surrounding their consumption. The neural mechanisms that guide our preferences and their influence on decisions grew out of the absolute evolutionary need to eat and drink in order to survive. So the character of these mechanisms was carved early on by the economic necessities of survival. However, the modern problem of preference is no longer so directly related to bare economic demands, but is greatly influence by cultural influences on what we eat and prefer to eat. This observation gives raises a natural question: How does one cultural message insinuate itself in our nervous system to commandeer behavior while others do not? And why should the human nervous system possess such a capacity? Recent work on these questions is now touching on why symbols for food and drink, e.g. brands, gain perceptual power over what we experience. I will discuss experiments and computer models used by neuroscientists and psychologists that begin to shed light on these issues.

"The Neuroesthetics of Smell: From Pavlov to Proust, with Pleasure"
 

The perception of flavor is a multi-sensory phenomenon.  The very act of eating a forkful of blueberry pie, of taking a sip of California Cabernet, recruits virtually every sense – smell, taste, sight, touch, and (occasionally) hearing.  But beyond this 'feast' of the senses, food perception is intensely modified by personal experience.  This presentation focuses on the role of learning, memory, and expectation in the formation of neural links between smells and shapes, as key components of a flavor event.  I will describe experiments that take as their starting point the physiological studies of Pavlov and the poetic justices of Proust, in order to illustrate the importance of experience in the neuroesthetics of smell.

 

Part 3

Chairperson: Dana Small

"Aroma, Emotion and Memory"

A discussion of the interaction between what we smell during a meal and how it makes us feel, both at home and in restaurants. Practical ways to incorporate aroma into the dining experience, including raiding the perfumer’s pantry and using their materials.

"Neurobiology underlying the neuroesthetic experience of taste"

The esthetic experience of gustation is both individual and universal, learned and innate.  Shared experiences of tasting relate to neurobiological, rather than psychological, aspects of the gustatory system.  These neurobiological aspects will be reviewed with emphasis on how the taste bud operates and how central gustatory areas influence reward centers of the brain.

Part 4

Chairperson: Scott Herness

"Awakening Taste: The Ceremony of Eating Just One Potato Chip"

With the ceremony of eating just one potato chip we will bring focused attention to the act of eating, noticing an everyday phenomenon with heightened awareness. Using zen sayings and poetry we'll elucidate the nature of taste, the nature of reality.

"Odor and pheromone processing in the human brain in relation to sex and sexual orientation"

How does our brain process odorous stimuli, and are different neuronal circuits involved depending on whether the stimulus is an ordinary odor or a pheromone-like compound? New data from neuroimaging studies of cerebral activation during odorous stimuli will be presented. The focus is on sex differences, but I am also going to discuss possible differences in relation to our sexual orientation.

Chairperson: Semir Zeki