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Arousal influences olfactory abilities in adults with different degree of food neophobia
Food neophobia, i.e., the aversion to novel foods, and olfaction are both factors strongly affecting food choices. Mounting evidence suggests a higher arousal towards food as a key factor underlying the reluctance to eat what is unfamiliar to us. As the role of olfaction behind this phenomenon is po...
Autores principales: | , , , , , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Nature Publishing Group UK
2020
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7689524/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33239637 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-77428-w |
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author | Menghi, Leonardo Khomenko, Iuliia Pedrotti, Michele Cliceri, Danny Aprea, Eugenio Endrizzi, Isabella Cavazzana, Annachiara Biasioli, Franco Giacalone, Davide Gasperi, Flavia |
author_facet | Menghi, Leonardo Khomenko, Iuliia Pedrotti, Michele Cliceri, Danny Aprea, Eugenio Endrizzi, Isabella Cavazzana, Annachiara Biasioli, Franco Giacalone, Davide Gasperi, Flavia |
author_sort | Menghi, Leonardo |
collection | PubMed |
description | Food neophobia, i.e., the aversion to novel foods, and olfaction are both factors strongly affecting food choices. Mounting evidence suggests a higher arousal towards food as a key factor underlying the reluctance to eat what is unfamiliar to us. As the role of olfaction behind this phenomenon is poorly understood, we explored the associations between food neophobia and trait anxiety, olfactory functions (odor threshold, discrimination and identification) and retronasal aroma release from a reference food in a healthy cohort of 83 adult volunteers. We grouped participants in Low-Neophobics or neophilics (n = 35), Medium-Neophobics (n = 32) and High-Neophobics (n = 16) according to the widely recognized Food Neophobia Scale. Participants with higher neophobic tendencies were found to have marginally higher trait anxiety levels than neophilics (p = 0.10). A lower global olfactory functioning and odor discrimination abilities characterized High-Neophobics, while Medium-Neophobics showed a higher odor sensitiveness than Low-Neophobics. Lastly, High-Neophobics showed a lower extent of retronasal aroma release, likely due to a shorter duration of oral processing and higher anxiety-related physiological responses (such as breathing rate). In summary, this study supports the assumption that the conflicting relationship that neophobics have with food may be led by higher levels of arousal toward foods, rather than different chemosensory functions. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-7689524 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2020 |
publisher | Nature Publishing Group UK |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-76895242020-11-27 Arousal influences olfactory abilities in adults with different degree of food neophobia Menghi, Leonardo Khomenko, Iuliia Pedrotti, Michele Cliceri, Danny Aprea, Eugenio Endrizzi, Isabella Cavazzana, Annachiara Biasioli, Franco Giacalone, Davide Gasperi, Flavia Sci Rep Article Food neophobia, i.e., the aversion to novel foods, and olfaction are both factors strongly affecting food choices. Mounting evidence suggests a higher arousal towards food as a key factor underlying the reluctance to eat what is unfamiliar to us. As the role of olfaction behind this phenomenon is poorly understood, we explored the associations between food neophobia and trait anxiety, olfactory functions (odor threshold, discrimination and identification) and retronasal aroma release from a reference food in a healthy cohort of 83 adult volunteers. We grouped participants in Low-Neophobics or neophilics (n = 35), Medium-Neophobics (n = 32) and High-Neophobics (n = 16) according to the widely recognized Food Neophobia Scale. Participants with higher neophobic tendencies were found to have marginally higher trait anxiety levels than neophilics (p = 0.10). A lower global olfactory functioning and odor discrimination abilities characterized High-Neophobics, while Medium-Neophobics showed a higher odor sensitiveness than Low-Neophobics. Lastly, High-Neophobics showed a lower extent of retronasal aroma release, likely due to a shorter duration of oral processing and higher anxiety-related physiological responses (such as breathing rate). In summary, this study supports the assumption that the conflicting relationship that neophobics have with food may be led by higher levels of arousal toward foods, rather than different chemosensory functions. Nature Publishing Group UK 2020-11-25 /pmc/articles/PMC7689524/ /pubmed/33239637 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-77428-w Text en © The Author(s) 2020 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. |
spellingShingle | Article Menghi, Leonardo Khomenko, Iuliia Pedrotti, Michele Cliceri, Danny Aprea, Eugenio Endrizzi, Isabella Cavazzana, Annachiara Biasioli, Franco Giacalone, Davide Gasperi, Flavia Arousal influences olfactory abilities in adults with different degree of food neophobia |
title | Arousal influences olfactory abilities in adults with different degree of food neophobia |
title_full | Arousal influences olfactory abilities in adults with different degree of food neophobia |
title_fullStr | Arousal influences olfactory abilities in adults with different degree of food neophobia |
title_full_unstemmed | Arousal influences olfactory abilities in adults with different degree of food neophobia |
title_short | Arousal influences olfactory abilities in adults with different degree of food neophobia |
title_sort | arousal influences olfactory abilities in adults with different degree of food neophobia |
topic | Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7689524/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33239637 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-77428-w |
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