Neuroscience of Flavor

3 Credits · Level: Graduate, Undergraduate

Flavor. The first frontier. For as long as there has been life there has been a need to find food, and therefore basic chemical sensation. This biological need has placed on us a consistent evolutionary pressure, driving the development of what we now know as flavor. In this course we will study how the brain creates our perception of flavor from multiple different exteroceptive senses (not just taste and smell), as well as from multiple different interoceptive senses, giving us information about our internal body states. Why does salt make everything taste better? Why is food tastier when you’re hungry? Why is food so inextricably tied up with culture? These questions are some hors d’oeuvres to prime your palate for what this course is about. Prerequisite: PSYC 1000