Ood for Thought: Hedonic Experience beyond Omeostasis in the Human Brain

bstract—Food intake is an essential human activity reguated by homeostatic and hedonic systems in the brain which as mostly been ignored by the cognitive neurosciences. Yet, he study of food intake integrates fundamental cognitive and motional processes in the human brain, and can in particuar provide evidence on the neural correlates of the hedonic xperience central to guiding behaviour. Neuroimaging exeriments provide a novel basis for the further exploration of he brain systems involved in the conscious experience of leasure and reward, and thus provide a unique method for tudying the hedonic quality of human experience. Recent euroimaging experiments have identified some of the reions involved in the cortical networks mediating hedonic xperience in the human brain, with the evidence suggesting hat the orbitofrontal cortex is the perhaps strongest candiate for linking food and other kinds of reward to hedonic xperience. Based on the reviewed literature, a model is roposed to account for the roles of the different parts of the rbitofrontal cortex in this hedonic network. © 2004 IBRO. ublished by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.