Science has claimed that part of the visual cortex lights up if we see the food we adore. According to scholars, there are neurons that are sensitive to food.
A group of neuroscientists say there is a family of food-sensitive neurons . They inhabit the specialized part of our visual cortex . The latter lights up if we see our favorite food . When we eat our favorite food, there are many emotions such as euphoria, desire and great expectation to taste what we like so much. So when we see the food we love, the part of our visual cortex, specialized thanks to the neurons sensitive to food, lights up.
Food is central to human social interactions and cultural practices. It is not just sustenance. Food is central to so many elements of our cultural identity, religious practice, social interactions, and many other things that humans do.
Nancy Kanwisher, professor of cognitive neuroscience
Here the study focused on how this type of food-sensitive neurons develop. The researchers used a mathematical method that allowed them to discover neural populations. These cannot be identified from the fMRI data, which is why the new analytical method is able to obtain the responses of the neural populations.
Four neural populations corresponding to faces, places, bodies and words were identified. These, however, were already known, but a fifth population has emerged. It is a food population that experts have defined as a ventral food component (VFC). It is distributed over two groups of neurons. The researchers attempted simulations that confirmed that VFC is highly selective for food images. From the analyzes, the researchers attested that in some subjects the VFC responded slightly better to foods such as pizza compared to apples.
- Your brain “lights up” with your favorite food, says science (ohga.it)
