The appreciation of wine by sommeliers: a functional magnetic resonance study 
of sensory integration

Castriota-Scanderbeg, A; Hagberg, GE; Cerasa, A; Committeri, G; Galati, G; Patria, F; Pitzalis, S; Caltagirone, C; Frackowiak, R

doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2004.11.045

Item

ITEM ACTIONSEXPORT

Add to Basket

Local TagsRelease HistoryDetailsSummary

Released

Journal Article

The appreciation of wine by sommeliers: a functional magnetic resonance study of sensory integration

MPS-Authors

There are no MPG-Authors in the publication available

External Resource

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1053811904007062
(Publisher version)

Fulltext (restricted access)

There are currently no full texts shared for your IP range.

Fulltext (public)

There are no public fulltexts stored in PuRe

Supplementary Material (public)

There is no public supplementary material available

Citation

Castriota-Scanderbeg, A., Hagberg, G., Cerasa, A., Committeri, G., Galati, G., Patria, F., et al. (2005). The appreciation of wine by sommeliers: a functional magnetic resonance study of sensory integration. NeuroImage, 25(2), 570-578. doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2004.11.045.

Cite as: https://hdl.handle.net/21.11116/0000-000A-0C21-4

Abstract

We set out to investigate how the expertise of a sommelier is embodied in neural circuitry by comparing brain activity elicited by wine tasting with that found in naïve drinkers of wine. We used fMRI to study 7 sommeliers and 7 age- and sex-matched control subjects to test the hypothesis that any difference in brain activity would reflect a learned ability to integrate information from gustatory and olfactory senses with past experience. A group analysis showed activation of a cerebral network involving the left insula and adjoining orbito-frontal cortex in sommeliers. Both these areas have been implicated in gustatory/olfactory integration in primates. In addition, activation was found bilaterally in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, which is implicated in high-level cognitive processes such as working memory and selection of behavioral strategies. Naïve individuals activated the primary gustatory cortex and brain areas, including the amygdala, implicated in emotional processing.