ULTIMO New publication in the field of neurogastronomy and sensory analysis

How can sweet taste perception help in the exploration and development of new foods and gastronomic experiences?

Various studies within the field of neurogastronomy suggest that our tastes and choices in food depend on different factors such as: the properties of the food, characteristics of the consumer and the context in which they have been consumed. This set of variables has a significant impact on the perception of food.

Under this premise, as part of her doctoral thesis in Gastronomic Sciences at the Basque Culinary Center, Elena Romeo, a sensory analysis specialist researcher, and her team launched the project 'Exploratory Research on Sweetness Perception, Decision Trees to Study Electroencephalographic Data and Its Relationship with the Explicit Response to Sweet Odor, Taste, and Flavor', which was published on September 8 in Sensor Journals MDPI (Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute), as part of the 'Special Issue Sensors and Biosensors for Environmental and Food Applications' which you can view and download here.

What techniques and strategies have been used?

The project has received funding from various government entities with the aim of investigating from a sensory point of view the perception of sweetness and the impact of different multimodal strategies as a tool for reducing sugar that the World Health Organization proposes.

Electroencephalography techniques have been used in a sample of eighteen participants to study the response associated with sugar consumption (sweet flavors and aromas), and studying its potential correlation with the explicit response.

In addition, to advance in neurocomputing, modeling brain signals (EEG) with artificial intelligence systems, it has had the collaboration of Ibermática (i3b), Be Food Lab and the University of A Coruña

How does the study impact?

The publication of this paper represents a great step forward in the field of neurogastronomy, a very complex field of knowledge that requires the collaboration of multidisciplinary work teams to rigorously advance in a field little explored by sensory analysis researchers.

There are very few publications in this field because both experimental design and data analytics require collaboration between scientists who usually do not find joint work spaces. The work published in Sensors MDPI is a sample of research in a field that is still very young, but with a future, and even more so if it is linked to the development of research in favor of promoting population health.

Download and read the full article: