The Use of Functional Neuroimaging to Study Oral Food Perception

Oral food perception is a complex, multisensory process that integrates taste, aroma, texture and chemesthetic sensations, alongside emotional and cognitive influences. These signals are transmitted to specific brain regions where they are processed and combined to create a rich, multidimensional food experience. Understanding how the brain perceives and integrates the sensory properties of food is essential not only for neuroscience and psychology but also for nutrition, food science and public health. In this chapter, we introduce the key neural systems involved in oro-sensory and reward processing of food and introduce how functional neuroimaging techniques, particularly functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), are used to study brain responses to various sensory aspects of food, including taste, aroma and texture. We address challenges such as stimulus delivery, motion artefacts, and participant variability in designing and conducting fMRI studies. In addition, we discuss the strengths and limitations of other functional neuroimaging methods. We highlight the importance of adopting more naturalistic paradigms to better reflect natural food cue exposure and eating contexts and conclude with considerations and recommendations for best practices in food-related neuroimaging research.