Black coffee often makes first-time drinkers wince. Bitterness is a taste the brain is inclined to avoid, yet many people come to look forward to that morning cup. What changes?
According to a University of California, San Francisco release carried by ScienceDaily, a paper published in Nature on 4 November describes a little-understood dopamine pathway linking the digestive system and the brain that helps explain how repeated experience makes us like certain flavours.
Dopamine is a messenger involved in motivation, reward and learning. Most research has looked at fast dopamine signals that appear within seconds, such as when we see a favourite meal. The new work examines a slower system that responds to information from inside the body, letting the brain keep learning about a food after it has reached the gut.
Put simply, liking a flavour depends not only on the tongue's first verdict but on the body's later feedback. The researchers suggest the finding could eventually help with reshaping eating habits and food preferences, though for now it remains basic science.
