Using neuroimaging, researchers at Yale University studied how flies choose their food. Their discovery could say a lot about human food choices.
- By studying the neuronal activity of flies, the researchers found that their food choices were dictated by their appetite.
- However, it is possible to manipulate their choices by causing a decrease in the activity of neurons involved in metabolism.
- This discovery has implications for human food choices by allowing scientists to understand how hunger or certain emotions influence our eating behavior.
Can flies shed light on human food tastes? this is what researchers at Yale University in the United States think. In a study published in NatureCommunicationsthey detail the neurological process they observed in insects when they feed.
Food choices that depend on appetite
Because, surprisingly, flies have a very sure taste. They avoid bitter and potentially toxic foods to focus on foods that offer them sweet and nutritious calories.
To understand what happens in the brains of flies when they feed, and thus determine how humans make their food choices, researchers gave hungry fruit flies the choice between a sweet and nutritious food containing bitter quinine. and a less sweet but not bitter food with fewer calories. Then, using neuroimaging, they tracked neural activity in their brains as they made their choice.
The results showed that their choice depended on their appetite. “The hungrier they are, the more likely they are to tolerate the bitter taste to get more calories”says Michael Nitabach, professor of cellular and molecular physiology, genetics, and neuroscience at Yale School of Medicine and lead author of the study.
In fact, flies relay sensory information to a part of their brain called the fan body, where signals are integrated, which triggers executive decision-making. The researchers found that neural activity patterns in the fan body change adaptively when new foods are offered, which dictates the fly’s decision on which food to eat.
Influencing food choices by altering neural activity
But the researchers went even further. They have indeed discovered that it is possible to influence the choice of the fly by manipulating the neurons of the areas of the brain which feed the body into a fan. They thus succeeded in causing a decrease in the activity of neurons involved in metabolism: the flies then chose the lowest calorie food.
This finding could have implications for human food choices, the study authors believe. Indeed, neuronal activity in the brain of a fly is regulated, as in humans, by the secretion of neuropeptides and dopamine. In humans, this process helps regulate feelings of reward. Modifying this neuronal activity can thus lead to making different food choices. In other words, neurochemistry can sometimes dictate the food choices we think we consciously make, the authors believe. “The study provides a model for understanding how things like hunger and internal emotional states influence our behavior”concludes Professor Nitabach.
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