Gustatory Responses in the Alert Monkey

对于人类和灵长类动物的大脑皮层如何处理味觉信息，我们所知相对较少。事实上，额叶皮层中只有一小部分神经细胞对味道有反应。因此，味觉输入并不像视觉输入支配后皮层输入那样支配这部分皮层的输入。为了更好地理解大脑的最高层是如何接收和分析味觉信息的，还需要更多的信息。本研究的目标是：(1)定义皮层味觉区域活动的总范围；(2)描述对味觉作出反应的神经细胞的基本特征；(3)确定味觉系统用来识别不同味觉品质的基本原则；(4)通过比较人类在品尝相同溶液时对感知的神经细胞反应，来描述灵长类动物的味觉系统与人类的味觉系统有多相似；(5)发现不同的味觉如何在感知上引起喜欢或不喜欢。

Relatively little is known about how the cortex of the brain processes information about taste in humans and primates. In fact, only a relative small percentage of nerve cells in the frontal cortex appear to be taste-responsive. Thus, taste input does not dominate the input to this portion of cortex in the same way that visual input dominates input to the posterior cortex. Much more information is needed in order to better understand how the highest levels of the brain receive and analyze taste information. The goals of this research are: (l) to define the total scope of activity in the taste regions of the cortex, (2) to describe the basic characteristics of nerve cells responding to taste, (3) to determine the basic principles that the taste system uses to identify different taste qualities, (4) to describe how similar the primate taste system is to the human taste system by comparing nerve cell responses to the perceptions that humans report when they taste the same solutions, and (5) to discover how various tastes may cause likes or dislikes in a perceptual sense.