The insulo-opercular cortex encodes food-specific content under controlled and naturalistic conditions

Yuhao Huang, Bina W. Kakusa, Austin Feng, Sandra Gattas, Rajat S. Shivacharan, Eric B. Lee, Jonathon J. Parker, Fiene M. Kuijper, Daniel A. N. Barbosa, Corey J. Keller, Cara Bohon, Abanoub Mikhail and Casey H. Halpern ()
Additional contact information
Yuhao Huang: Stanford University
Bina W. Kakusa: Stanford University
Austin Feng: Stanford University
Sandra Gattas: Stanford University
Rajat S. Shivacharan: Stanford University
Eric B. Lee: Stanford University
Jonathon J. Parker: Stanford University
Fiene M. Kuijper: Stanford University
Daniel A. N. Barbosa: Stanford University
Corey J. Keller: Stanford University
Cara Bohon: Stanford University
Abanoub Mikhail: Stanford University
Casey H. Halpern: Stanford University

Nature Communications, 2021, vol. 12, issue 1, 1-12

Abstract: Abstract The insulo-opercular network functions critically not only in encoding taste, but also in guiding behavior based on anticipated food availability. However, there remains no direct measurement of insulo-opercular activity when humans anticipate taste. Here, we collect direct, intracranial recordings during a food task that elicits anticipatory and consummatory taste responses, and during ad libitum consumption of meals. While cue-specific high-frequency broadband (70–170 Hz) activity predominant in the left posterior insula is selective for taste-neutral cues, sparse cue-specific regions in the anterior insula are selective for palatable cues. Latency analysis reveals this insular activity is preceded by non-discriminatory activity in the frontal operculum. During ad libitum meal consumption, time-locked high-frequency broadband activity at the time of food intake discriminates food types and is associated with cue-specific activity during the task. These findings reveal spatiotemporally-specific activity in the human insulo-opercular cortex that underlies anticipatory evaluation of food across both controlled and naturalistic settings.

Date: 2021
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-23885-4 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:12:y:2021:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-021-23885-4

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-021-23885-4

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().