Gustatory processing is dynamic and distributed

Abstract

The process of gustatory coding consists of neural responses that provide information about the quantity and quality of food, its generalized sensation, its hedonic value, and whether it should be swallowed. Many of the models presently used to analyze gustatory signals are static in that they use the average neural firing rate as a measure of activity and are unimodal in the sense they are thought to only involve chemosensory information. We have recently elaborated upon a dynamic model of gustatory coding that involves interactions between neurons in single as well as in spatially separate, gustatory and somatosensory regions. We propose that the specifics of gustatory responses grow not only out of information ascending from taste receptor cells, but also from the cycling of information around a massively interconnected system.