Neuronal correlates of basic taste perception and hedonic evaluation using functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS)

• Sensory evaluation combined with fNIRS to study behavior during food tasting. • Basic tastes and different chocolates used to monitor prefrontal cortex activation. • Sweet and bitter tastes elicit decreased and increased neuronal activity, respectively. • Differences in brain activity between Likers and Dislikers of both chocolates. • fNIRS may predict consumer preferences for food, but larger sample size is required. Sensory evaluation combined with neuromarketing is expected to improve the understanding of consumer behavior during food tasting. In this study, we used functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) to monitor neuronal activation in the prefrontal cortex in response to basic tastes (sweet and bitter) and hedonically different chocolates (whole-milk chocolate and dark chocolate) in 34 healthy consumers. Sweet and bitter tastes tend to elicit decreased and increased neuronal activity, respectively. However, no significant differences in neuronal activation related to different sensitivities to basic tastes were observed. Regarding hedonic neuronal reactions, we detected a significant difference in brain activity between Likers and Dislikers for both chocolates, but the results were inconsistent between the two chocolates. Due to the small sample size, generalizing our results is critical, but these findings suggest that fNIRS could potentially be applied to predict consumer preferences for food, necessitating further research with larger sample sizes.