Cross-model Information Processing Of Visual And Taste:An A Resting- And Task-state Brain Imaging Study

In daily life,individuals are bombarded by information from each single sensory channel all the time.Continuous integration of information from multiple channels can maintain the optimal integration of individual access to environmental information.Previous studies have shown that facial expression recognition is affected by emotion-related information of multiple channels(visual,auditory,and olfactional).When the information of multiple sensory channels is consistent in emotional dimension,it will promote the integration of multi-channel information(manifested as faster and more accurate emotion recognition).Taste is closely related to our daily life.Currently,cross-model studies involving taste mainly focus on behavioral level.A large number of previous literatures have shown that visual information can affect taste sensitivity,and there are also studies showing that taste can affect the recognition of visual information,but brain image studies involving neurophysiological level are very limited.Therefore,based on the previous research of our research group and combined with brain imaging technology,this project explores the influence of taste on emotional face recognition and related neural mechanisms.This study consists of two experiments.The first part is the task state experiment,which records the brain performing the task of emotional face recognition under different taste stimuli.By analyzing the task state data,the neural mechanism of the influence of taste on the cross-model information processing of emotional face recognition is explored.In addition to the traditional task state experiment,it also includes the recording and analysis of post-task resting state data.In traditional brain imaging studies,spontaneous neural activity in the brain is seen as "noise." But researchers now believe that spontaneous brain activity is highly structured in space and time,and that such spontaneous activity is subject to specific changes influenced by prior cognitive experience.And task-driven neural spontaneous activity reflects learning,adaptation and information reprocessing.Therefore,the second part of the experiment is to record the resting state data after the visual-taste cross-model task,analyze the spontaneous activity state of the brain after the task,and try to excavate the sustainable spontaneous processing brain region of the brain where the visual-taste information is integrated cross model from a new perspective.Experiment 1 explores the underlying neural mechanism of the visual-taste transchannel processing.A total of 31 subjects(14 males and 17 females)were recruited to identify the emotions of faces on a screen while being stimulated by either a sour or sweet solution in an MRI machine.Behavioral data analysis showed that there was also an emotional consistency effect in the visual-taste information integration across channels.Compared with sweet taste,sour taste promoted the recognition of aversive faces.Brain imaging results also found evidence of visual-taste integration across channels.There were significant differences between the right middle temporal gyrus,left posterior central gyrus,left lingual gyrus,left insula,bilateral superior frontal gyrus and anterior cingulate cortex in processing aversive faces under sweet and sour taste conditions.In processing pleasant faces,the right lingual gyrus and superior frontal gyrus were significantly different under sour and sweet taste.Experiment 2 explored the state of brain spontaneous activity after visual taste cross channel information processing.Experiment 2 explored the state of brain spontaneous activity after a visual taste cross channel information task.After each task in Experiment 1 was completed,a 6-minute resting state scan was performed to reflect the spontaneous activity of local voxels in the brain after the visual taste cross channel task using the resting state indicator PerAF(percentage amplitude).The results showed that compared to sour taste,higher PerAF values were induced in both medial and lateral cingulate gyri after judging disgusted faces under sweet taste.In conclusion,this study reveals the brain activity characteristics of visual-taste crossmodel information processing from the research methods of task state and resting state.On the one hand,the key regions of cross-model emotional information interaction between visual and taste were revealed from the process of task execution.On the other hand,the use of post-task resting state data provides the physiological basis for task-related spontaneous brain activity after cross-model tasks.From the perspective of sustainable brain activity,the understanding of relevant neural mechanism of cross-model information integration of sight and taste is further expanded and deepened.