Andrew Huberman· PhD
So first answer is they go into an area of the brain where valence is imposed, and that area is known as the amygdala and the sweet neurons go to a different area than the bitter neurons.
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The evidence is convergent. Multiple independent sources reach the same conclusion, the underlying mechanism is well-characterized, and even the field's most cautious voices treat it as worth doing.
So first answer is they go into an area of the brain where valence is imposed, and that area is known as the amygdala and the sweet neurons go to a different area than the bitter neurons.
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So the first thing is that the two evoke diametrically opposed behaviors. If we have to come up with two sensory experience that represent polar opposites, it will be sweet and video. There are not two colors that represent polar opposites because you could say black and white, they are polar opposites, one detects only one thing. The other one detects everything, but they don't evoke different behaviors. - Sweet and bitter are the two opposite ends of the sensory spectrum
It is that it substantiates this capacity of the brain to segregate, to separate in this nodes of action, the representation of these two diametrically opposed percepts. Which is sweet, for example, versus bitter.
So the first thing is that the two evoke diametrically opposed behaviors. If we have to come up with two sensory experience that represent polar opposites, it will be sweet and bitter. So then the signals, if we follow now these two lines, they're really like two separate keys at the two ends of this keyboard.
the pathways, the parallel pathways for salty and the parallel pathways for sweet and bitter and so on can actually interact. And this has important relevance in the context of food choices and sugar craving.