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Figure 6 | Flavour

Figure 6

From: The pleasure of food: underlying brain mechanisms of eating and other pleasures

Figure 6

Model of information flow in the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC). The spatial heterogeneity of the human OFC has been revealed with neuroimaging. (A-C) The OFC is involved in most of the phases of the pleasure cycle, including evaluation, expectation, experience as well as decision-making and selection. Sensory information comes to the OFC where it is available for pattern association between primary (e.g. taste) and secondary (e.g. visual) reinforcers. Sensory information is combined in multisensory representations in the posterior OFC with processing increasing in complexity towards more anterior areas. The reward value of reinforcers is assigned in more anterior regions. This information is stored for valence monitoring/learning/memory (in medial OFC, green) and made available for subjective hedonic experience (in mid-OFC, orange) and used to influence subsequent behaviour (in lateral OFC with links to regions of anterior cingulate cortex, blue). The OFC participates in multiple modulatory brain-loops with other important structures in the pleasure system such as the nucleus accumbens, ventral pallidum, amygdala and hypothalamus, as well as modulation with autonomic input from the gut. [34]. B) Examples of monitoring reward value in medial OFC (green) was found in a study of orthonasal smell where the activity correlated with subjective ratings of pleasant and unpleasant smell [66]. Activity in mid-OFC (orange) correlates with the subjective pleasure of food in a study of selective-satiety [33]. In contrast, the activity in lateral OFC (shown in red) was found when changing behaviour in a rapid context-dependent reversal task of simple social interactions [84]. C) A large meta-analysis of neuroimaging studies confirmed the differential functional roles of these regions [34]. Future avenues of research include describing temporal unfolding of activity, similar to early involvement of the medial OFC (<130 ms) in processing rewards such as cute babies and guide attentional resources [71].

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