Research suggests that the discriminative and affective aspects of touch are processed differently in the brain. Primary somatosensory cortex is strongly implicated in touch discrimination, whereas insular and prefronal regions have been associated with pleasantness aspects of touch. However, the role of secondary somatosensory cortex (S2) is less clear. In the current study we used inhibitory ...

We examined whether presenting an odor with a positive, neutral, or negative name would influence how people perceive it. In experiment 1, 40 participants rated 15 odors for their pleasantness, intensity, and arousal. In experiment 2, 30 participants passively smelled 10 odors while their skin conductance (SC), heart rate (HR), and sniffing were recorded. We found significant overall effects of...

Interpersonal touch is frequently used for communicating emotions, strengthen social bonds and to give others pleasure. The neuropeptide oxytocin increases social interest, improves recognition of others' emotions, and it is released during touch. Here, we investigated how oxytocin and gentle human touch affect social impressions of others, and vice versa, how others' facial expressions and oxy...

The sound character of multi-tone sounds offers a rich bunch of perceptual aspects that can be linked to spectral and temporal properties of the signals. The frequency spacing of the partials is one major underlying determinant. Already subtle changes of the partial spacing can have a big effect on the temporal structure in terms of the signals’ repetition rate. For sounds consisting of a super...

Much work has investigated the neural representation of specific categories of knowledge, but relatively scant attention has been paid in the cognitive neuroscience literature to the semantic processes that contribute to semantic memory. In this study, we monitored regional cortical activity with fMRI while healthy young adults evaluated visually displayed NATURAL KIND, ARTIFACT, and ABSTRACT n...

Background The postingestive effects of food stimulate food intake. Dopamine is critically involved in encoding food reward, including postingestive reward. Aims We proposed to explore the possibility of conditioning flavor-nutrient associations in humans and, in parallel, use invasive tools in mice to explore the relevance of dopaminergic neuron activity in the VTA for nutrient conditioning. M...

It is well established that for most people linguistic processing is primarily a left hemisphere activity, whereas recent evidence has shown that basic odor perception is more lateralized to the right hemisphere. Importantly, under certain conditions, emotional responding also shows right hemisphere laterality. Hedonic (pleasantness) assessments constitute basic level emotional responses. Given...

We investigated the role of distinct regions of the default-mode network (DMN) during memory encoding with fMRI. Subjects encoded words using either a strategy that emphasized self-referential (pleasantness) processing, or one that emphasized semantic (man-made/natural) processing. During encoding subjects were intermittently presented with thought probes to evaluate if they were concentrated a...

The aim of this study was to monitor sensory quality, stability, selected nutritionally interesting properties and their changes in cold-pressed oil blends after fortification with chia sesame seeds seed oils during repeated thermal treatments. Rapeseed (cv. Sidney) sunflower Velox) from the Czech Republic were used produce oils, which fortified concentrations 1% 5%. In all blends, evaluation (...