info:eu-repo/semantics/bookPart
Neurobiology of neophobia and its attenuation
Autor
Daniel Osorio-Gómez
Federico Bermudez_Rattoni
Kioko Guzmán-Ramos
Institución
Resumen
Rejection to novel tastes (neophobia) is an adaptive behavior that reduces the probability of ingestion of potentially harmful foods. When a taste becomes familiar and appetitive after repeated consumption the neophobia response is reduced by a learning mechanism, called attenuation of neophobia. Reluctance to ingest novel foods is observed in several organisms including humans (Rozin, 1976), suggesting that neophobia and its attenuation are well conserved behavioral traits, in which the organisms must recognize familiar tastes from potentially harmful ones. Recognition and selection of familiar foods that are appetitive depend on neurobiological learning processes. For many years, many research groups have been studying the brain structures that are involved in the acquisition, consolidation, and retrieval of gustatory memory information. In this chapter, we will present compelling information about brain structures, neurochemistry, and molecular mechanisms that are implicated in the neophobic response, its attenuation and the retrieval of taste recognition memory.