MODEL FOR SENSITIVE PERIODS IN EARLY FLAVOR LEARNING

人类在生命早期形成的口味和食物偏好可以追溯到童年和青春期，这一发现 对长期健康有重要影响。然而，这种偏好是如何形成的仍然是一个谜。 我们研究计划的主要目标是了解风味和食物偏好是如何形成和变化的 随着经验的改变而改变。为此，我们调查了最早的味道体验，那些 发生在子宫内和母乳喂养期间，并表明这些经历会影响婴儿的 能接受各种口味和食物，包括蔬菜。最近，我们利用了 以商品婴儿配方奶粉之间的显著风味差异为模型来研究早期的影响 婴儿配方奶粉喂养的经验。配方奶粉接受度的巨大发展变化 它们是以蛋白质水解物为基础的，并且发现早期接触会导致享乐性的完全转变 基调使这个配方的味道从绝对的厌恶到热切的接受，使它成为一种强大的 实验工具。早期接触的影响尤其持久，导致偏好改变。 在孩子最后一次暴露的几年后。这些研究的结果为拟议的 研究决定风味和食物偏好的敏感期(“风味印记”)。至 最大化这项研究的价值，大多数建议的研究都是在相同的队列中进行的 婴儿。这些婴儿将在他们生命的头三年进行研究，我们认为这段时期对 建立风味和食物接受度的长期模式。这部小说的成果是多学科的 研究计划将对理解感官引导具有理论和实践意义 人类婴儿的反应和食物选择的生物学。他们还将提供有关战略的信息 以克服将水解物配方奶粉介绍给临床需要的婴儿的困难。儿童 参与每一项拟议研究的人员将对最近发现的味觉受体基因进行基因分型。 以确定遗传差异如何有助于食物偏好的发展。新知识 关于食物偏好形成的机制和食物喜好的分子基础 而对儿童的厌恶，这一代人将与肥胖和糖尿病作斗争，可能会建议采取策略 克服饮食引起的疾病。

Human flavor and food preferences established early in life track into childhood and adolescence, a finding with important implications for long-term health. How such preferences develop remains a mystery, however. The primary goal of our research program is to understand how flavor and food preferences develop and are modified with experience. To this end, we investigated the very earliest flavor experiences, those which occur in utero and during breastfeeding, and demonstrated that these experiences influence the infant's acceptance of a variety of flavors and foods including vegetables. More recently, we have taken advantage of the marked flavor differences among commercial infant formulas as a model to study the effects of early experiences in infants who are formula fed. The drastic developmental changes in acceptance of formulas which are protein hydrolysate based and the finding that early exposure results in a complete shift in hedonic tone to the flavor of this formula from one of absolute distaste to eager acceptance, make it a powerful experimental tool. The effects of early exposure were particularly persistent, leading to altered preferences several years after the child's last exposure. The findings from these studies set the stage for the proposed investigation on sensitive periods in determining flavor and food preferences ("flavor imprinting"). To maximize the value of this research, most of the proposed studies are conducted with the same cohort of infants. These infants will be studied across their first three years of life, a period we believe is crucial to the establishment of long-term patterns of flavor and food acceptance. The results of this novel, multidisciplinary research program will have both theoretical and practical implications for understanding the sensory-guided responses of human infants and the biology of food choice. They will also provide information on strategies to overcome the difficulties in introducing hydrolysate formulas to infants who need them clinically. Children participating in each of the proposed studies will be genotyped for recently discovered taste receptor genes to determine how genetic differences contribute to the development of food preferences. New knowledge about the mechanisms underlying the formation of food preferencesand the molecular basis of food likes and dislikes in children, a generation who will struggle with obesity and diabetes, may suggest strategies to overcome diet-induced diseases.