
If you've ever wondered how you learn to like a food you dislike.
A new study conducted by UC Santa Barbara's Craig Montell, Duggan Professor of Neuroscience in the Department of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology, may offer an answer.
The work addresses a central question in neurobiology — how experience can alter animal behavior. The research, just published in Nature Neuroscience, was conducted by Montell's team, which includes lead author Yali Zhang, Rakesh Raghuwanshi, and Wei Shen.
Using the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster, as an animal model, the researchers unraveled a mechanism to explain how animals modify their taste preferences. "This study was inspired by trying to understand how it is an animal learns to like foods they didn't like before," said Montell. "We want to understand taste proclivity because it is a universal behavior in all animals."
Source: Eurekalert