Investigating the responses of brain to taste stimuli via electrophysiological methods and frequency analysis: Preliminary results

Spontaneous potentials occur during the brain's activities. In addition, some potentials occur depending on receptor activations during the stimulated state. The aim of this study is to investigate bioelectrical changes of the brain against taste stimuli. Bioelectrical changes were recorded and measured objectively via electroencephalograhpy (EEG). Five healthy volunteers (2 females; mean age: 24.6 years) participated to the study. Current study was conducted in Dokuz Eylul University Biophysics Department, Five Senses Laboratory. Taste stimuli were delivered via Gustometer (Burghart MT, Germany). These tastes were bitter, sour, sweet, salty, and umami. As a result of EEG data analysis amplitude-time graphs were obtained for all participants. Continuous wavelet transform was applied to brain responses to taste stimuli for detailed analysis. These responses were investigated on scalogram. The highest peak to peak maximum amplitude value was measured on sour taste (11.46 µV). The aim of the future studies is to topologically demonstrate the brain responsiveness to five basic taste, and also to make contributions to literature about the activations in frequency-time domain.