how is cuisine related to science

we’re a month into 2015, and a lot of usare probably struggling with our new years diet resolutions. but if you find yourself staring at the half-eatendonut in your hand saying, “why can’t i quit you?”, don’t beat yourself up toomuch. new research out this week suggests that ourbrains are hardwired to love that donut. writing in the publication cell, scientistsat mit say that they’ve discovered the neural circuit that controls sugar and food addictions. it’s called the lh-vta loop, and it’slike a highway between the lateral hypothalamus, or lh, which controls how hungry you feel,and the ventral tegmental area, or vta, which

is the center of the brain’s reward circuit. scientists knew that the lh-vta loop existed-- problems in this area have been linked to some sexual and drug addictions. but they didn’t know if it was responsiblefor food addiction, as well. so to test its role in eating behavior, theyused a technique called optogenetics, on mice. they genetically modified certain neuronsin the mice’s brains, so that those cells could be basically turned on or off by exposingthem to light. by delivering a yellow light through a small,implanted fiber optic, the scientists could turn those neurons on and activate the lh-vtaloop.

they could also turn those same neurons offby delivering a blue light. with these modifications in place, healthy,well-fed mice were put into two stations. the first had a cup full of food pellets,and the second had a sugar dispenser. the scientists then activated the yellow light. with their reward circuits stuck in the “on”position, the mice ate for longer periods of time in the first station, and kept goingback to the sugar dispenser, repeatedly, at the second station. the mice at the second station would evenwalk across a platform that delivered electrical shocks just to get more of that sweet stuff.

but when the scientists used the blue lightto turn off the lh-vta loop, the mice wouldn’t walk across the electrified platform, andthey wouldn’t eat if they were full. now, we humans also have this same loop inour brains, and it’s likely there for a reason. many scientists believe that our taste forwhat we now think of as junk food evolved as a way to reward us for finding palatable,high-energy food when food was scarce. but, because we now live in a world with akrispy kreme on every corner, our desire for sugar has become more of a hinderance thana help. so, the scientists say that finding the partof our brain that regulates these cravings

can help in developing treatments for often-debilitatingfood addictions. but, besides our brain’s reward system,what else makes us love food? well, taste, of course. there’s bitter, sweet, salty, sour and what’ssometimes called the ‘fifth’ taste, known as umami. it’s best described as a savory -- but notsalty -- flavor that you can’t quite put your finger on. umami flavor comes predominantly from highlevels of the amino acid glutamate and was discovered by a japanese scientist in 1908.

it’s found in cheeses, shiitake mushrooms,ham, and monosodium glutamate, a food additive that was developed in 1909 to enhance theumami flavor of food. now, according to a new study in japan, tastingumami might be important to our health. scientists performed what’s known as a paperfilter disk test on 44 elderly patients. the test uses a small piece of paper soaked indifferent concentrations of a tasty solution and places on the parts of the tongue responsiblefor each taste. and 16 percent of those tested turned outto have unusually high thresholds for umami, meaning that they could barely taste it. and those same patients were also ones whostated that food in general just wasn’t

palatable to them anymore. as a result, theyhad suffered from loss of appetite and weight loss. part of their problem, it turned out, washyposalivation, or the inability to produce enough saliva. you have to produce saliva in order to tasteanything, because food needs to be partially dissolved by saliva for our taste buds toregister them. and you know what actually stimulates salivaproduction? foods with umami in it! so in a weird kind of catch-22, the patientsneeded to eat more umami in order to taste umami, to get their appetites back.

so the scientists prescribed a daily regimeof konbu-cha, a tea made from kelp that’s rich in glutamate the tea began stimulating their umami receptors,which caused them to slowly increase saliva production. and as they started to producemore saliva, they began to taste foods more strongly. eventually, food became more palatable andthey regained their appetite. thank you for watching this particularly deliciousepisode of scishow news. if you want to help us share science with the world, you can becomea supporting subscriber at subbable.com/scishow. and don’t forget to go to youtube.com/scishowand subscribe!

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