Project description
Teaching our bodies to love healthy foods
Poor nutrition is one of the main threats to global health. We need to turn to a sustainable healthy diet. But changing our food habits is not easy due to the deep core physiological mechanisms of the human body that determine our food preferences. In effect, we cannot resist the influence of some flavours and smells. The EU-funded OLFLINK project aims at research that will explain how new flavour preferences are formed. In this context, it will study the processes that drive the acquisition of flavour preferences and their regulation through signals from the digestive tract. The project will enable new methods to facilitate changing dietary habits for the better.
Objective
To change human diets is an urgent global health and sustainability goal; yet, overcoming preferences for familiar food flavors in favor of healthier or more sustainable options remains a major challenge. Odor-taste associative learning is the principal perceptual support process for flavor preference formation and retrieval. Mechanistic insight into the cortical processes that transfer appetitive properties of an odor from the mouth onto environmental objects is, however, almost completely absent. As a result, fundamental questions about the processes that drive the acquisition of new flavor preferences, and their regulation by signals from the digestive tract, still remain to be answered. OLFLINK will uncover processes that link olfactory perception inside and outside the mouth across three nested levels of investigation that are usually studied in separation. In doing so, I propose to discover key factors that facilitate or hinder acquisition of new flavor preferences. Specifically, I will 1: determine the distributed CODE by which odors acquire and evoke taste associations (WP1), 2: delineate the cortical CONTROL mechanisms that facilitate encoding and retrieval of odor-taste associations in the light of contextual variability (WP2), and 3: determine the interactions with digestive feedback that REGULATE this flexible coding system during flavor preference acquisition and retrieval (WP3). This final step especially provides insight into the bodys ability to adjust learning and retrieval of food preferences based on nutritional needs, and has potential to transform our thinking about the biological basis of maladaptive eating patterns. The novel insights from OLFLINK will fill the knowledge gap that currently exists between the mechanisms driving perceptual experiences during food consumption and the subsequent evaluation of food in the outside world, and will inspire the development of novel interventions to facilitate dietary changes over the life course.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
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Keywords
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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H2020-EU.1.1. - EXCELLENT SCIENCE - European Research Council (ERC)
MAIN PROGRAMME
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Topic(s)
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Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Funding Scheme
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
ERC-STG - Starting Grant
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Call for proposal
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) ERC-2020-STG
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Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.
171 77 STOCKHOLM
Sweden
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