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1 Experimental Psychology, Oxford University, Oxford, United Kingdom
* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: Edmund.Rolls{at}psy.ox.ac.uk.
The primate orbitofrontal cortex is a site of convergence from taste, olfactory and somatosensory cortical areas. We describe a population of single neurons in the macaque orbitofrontal cortex that responds to the texture of food in the mouth. Use of an oral viscosity stimulus consisting of carboxymethyl-cellulose in the range 1 - 10,000 centiPoise showed that the responses of one subset of these neurons were related to stimulus viscosity. Some of the neurons had increasing responses to increasing viscosity, some had decreasing responses, and some neurons were tuned to a range of viscosities. These neurons are a different population to oral fat-sensitive neurons, in that their responses to fats (e.g. safflower oil), to silicone oil (Si(CH3)2O)n), and to mineral oil (hydrocarbon) depended on the viscosity of these oils. Thus there is a dissociation between texture channels used to sense viscosity and fat. Some of these viscosity-sensitive single neurons were unimodal (somatosensory) (25%), and some received convergent taste inputs (75%). A second subpopulation of neurons responded to gritty texture (produced by microspheres suspended in carboxymethyl cellulose). A third subpopulation of neurons responded to capsaicin. These results provide evidence about the information channels used to represent the texture and flavor of food in a part of the brain important in appetitive responses to food, and are relevant to understanding the physiological and pathophysiological processes related to food intake, food selection, and the effects of variety of food texture in combination with taste and other inputs that affect food intake.
This article has been cited by other articles:
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  F. Grabenhorst, E. T. Rolls, and A. Bilderbeck How Cognition Modulates Affective Responses to Taste and Flavor: Top-down Influences on the Orbitofrontal and Pregenual Cingulate Cortices Cereb Cortex, July 1, 2008; 18(7): 1549 - 1559. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
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 J. R. Stapleton, M. L. Lavine, R. L. Wolpert, M. A. L. Nicolelis, and S. A. Simon Rapid Taste Responses in the Gustatory Cortex during Licking J. Neurosci., April 12, 2006; 26(15): 4126 - 4138. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
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 M. Kadohisa, E. T. Rolls, and J. V. Verhagen Neuronal Representations of Stimuli in the Mouth: The Primate Insular Taste Cortex, Orbitofrontal Cortex and Amygdala Chem Senses, June 1, 2005; 30(5): 401 - 419. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
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E. Hurliman, J. C. Nagode, and J. V. Pardo Double Dissociation of Exteroceptive and Interoceptive Feedback Systems in the Orbital and Ventromedial Prefrontal Cortex of Humans J. Neurosci., May 4, 2005; 25(18): 4641 - 4648. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
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E. T. Rolls Taste and Related Systems in Primates Including Humans Chem Senses, January 1, 2005; 30(suppl_1): i76 - i77. [Full Text] [PDF]
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 J. V. Verhagen, M. Kadohisa, and E. T. Rolls Primate Insular/Opercular Taste Cortex: Neuronal Representations of the Viscosity, Fat Texture, Grittiness, Temperature, and Taste of Foods J Neurophysiol, September 1, 2004; 92(3): 1685 - 1699. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
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I. E. de Araujo and E. T. Rolls Representation in the Human Brain of Food Texture and Oral Fat J. Neurosci., March 24, 2004; 24(12): 3086 - 3093. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
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