MMiN 2022

Welcome Symposium (29th June 2022, 15.30-18.30 CET)

The role of neurosensory and olfactory system in food choices and preferences

Given Lyon’s high reputation for its gastronomy, the local scientific committee of the 18th International Conference in Monitoring Molecules in Neuroscience, organizes a satellite symposium on the role of neurosensory and olfactory system in food choices and preferences. The senses play a crucial role in informing acceptance and rejection of foods and beverages. Thus, a food's perceptual properties are important for the detection of its nutrient content and through this, guide not only food choice but also habitual energy selection and eating behaviour. This Satellite symposium will provide an overview of how chemosensory signals are integrated in the brain and their interaction with metabolic factors influencing food behavior in healthy and vulnerable populations.

Programme

Chair: Anestis Dougkas (Institut Paul Bocuse Research Centre, France)

15.30-16.20: Marlou Lasschuijt (Wageningen University, The Netherlands): Through the senses: Exploring how chemosensory signals drive food intake. Sensory signals impact our metabolic responses directly via the brainstem or through processing in higher regions of the brain and are involved in all our daily food choices. Sensory perception determines our food preferences and ultimately our diet

16.20-17.10: Marc Tittgemeyer (Max Planck Institute for Metabolism Research, Germany): Understanding how the brain senses the body's needs – such as the need for food – and then generates specific behavioural responses that restore physiologic balance. A breakthrough has been achieved by relating dopamine release to different streams of information upon food intake, highlighting a mechanism for how the brain transforms energetic signals into the desire to eat. Other recent studies concerned that question how signals that convey nutritional information from the periphery to the brain regulate food reinforcement and choice

17.10-18.00: Anestis Dougkas (Institut Paul Bocuse Research Centre, France): Sensory alteration in cancer patients during chemotherapy and its relation to food behavior. An overview of the individual differences in sensory changes observed in cancer patients during chemotherapy and the introduction of the Cancer Nutrition and Taste project where the interplay between senses, food behavior and nutrient intake are explored using the Living Lab ecological context of the Institute

18.00-18.30 Dynamic session on the cocktail taste reception: Maintaining pleasure from eating in cancer patients has been a challenge. Scientists and culinary chefs from both ELIOR and the Institut Paul Bocuse will share insights on creating healthy and tasty meals and participating in multidisciplinary projects where culinary, nutrition and sensory expertise are met. (e.g. eggplant aubergine)