Odor-Induced Taste Enhancement Is Specific to Naturally Occurring Temporal Order and the Respiration Phase.

Interaction between odor and taste information creates flavor perception. There are many possible determinants of the interaction between odor and taste, one of which may be the somatic sensations associated with breathing. We assumed that a smell stimulus accompanied by inhaling or exhaling enhances taste intensity if the order is congruent with natural drinking. To present an olfactory stimulus from the identical location during inhalation and exhalation, we blocked the gap between the tube presenting the olfactory stimulus and the nostril. Participants breathed and ingested the solution according to the instructions on the screen and evaluated the solution's taste intensity. Vanilla odor enhanced the sweet taste in both retronasal and orthonasal conditions when the order of stimuli was congruent with natural drinking, but it did not do so in either condition when they were incongruent. The results suggest that breathing is a determinant of odor-taste interaction. The methods of presenting olfactory stimuli used in this study were compared and discussed in relation to those used in previous studies. Odor-induced taste enhancement depends on the time order of smell with breathing and taste congruency in natural drinking. Taste enhancement was induced by odor in both conditions by minimizing differences in odor presentation between them.

Evaluation of baker's yeast strains exhibiting significant growth on Japanese beet molasses and compound analysis of the molasses types.

Cane molasses, most of which is imported, is used as a raw material for production of baker's yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) in Japan. On the other hand, beet molasses is scarcely used for this purpose, but it can be of great advantage to cane molasses because it is domestically produced in relatively high amounts as a by-product of beet sugar processing. However, the yield of baker's yeast is sometimes low with Japanese beet molasses compared to imported cane molasses. For the production of baker's yeast with Japanese beet molasses, we evaluated S. cerevisiae strains, including industrial and laboratory strains, to group them according to the growth profile on beet and cane molasses. To discuss the factors affecting growth, we further analyzed the major compounds in both types of molasses. Beet molasses seems to contain compounds that promote the growth of beet molasses-favoring strains rather than inhibit the growth of cane molasses-favoring strains. It was assumed that α-amino acid was one of the growth promotion factors for beet molasses-favoring strains.

[Effects of eye movement on forming and relaxing constraints in insight problem solving].

To solve an insight problem, a problem solver needs to relax mental constraints that prevent solving the problem, and to shift a search in an incorrect problem space into a search in a correct problem space. In this paper, we investigate how a tracking stimulus that guides problem solvers' eye movements affects the formation and relaxation of constraints in insight problem solving. We conducted two experiments using an insight task and an eye-tracking task in which participants' eye movements were expected to inhibit the fixation constraints in the insight task. Participants engaged in the tracking task before the constraints were formed in Experiment 1 and after the constraints were formed in Experiment 2. In Experiment 1, participants who performed the tracking task were inhibited in forming the constraints more than those in the control condition. In both Experiments 1 and 2, the tracking task affects the participants' hypothesis formation in the insight problem solving processes. In particular, participants who were presented the tracking stimulus found a target rule faster after beginning to relax the constraints than those in the control condition.

G-CSF augments small vessel and cell density in canine myocardial infarciton.

We recently reported that granulocyte-colony stimulating factor (G-CSF) prevented cardiac remodeling by mobilization and differentiation of bone marrow-derived cells in murine experimental myocardial infarction (MI). Little is known, however, whether these findings can be reproduced in large animals. The aim of this study is to investigate the effect of G-CSF after MI in canine model. MI was generated in twenty-six beagle dogs by ligation of left anterior descending artery. They were divided into two groups: G-CSF group which received subcutaneous injection of G-CSF (10 microg/kg/day) for 10 days, and the control group with saline injection. After six weeks, they were subjected to echocardiography and catheterization to measure hemodynamic parameters, and histological analysis was performed. No dogs died during the period. No hemodynamic changes were observed between these two groups probably due to the smaller size of the MI than we expected. We found significant increase in wall thickness and higher cell density in G-CSF group. Immunohistochemical staining against alpha-smooth muscle actin and CD31 revealed increased vessel density mainly in the epicardium in G-CSF group. The number of survived cardiomyocytes in G-CSF group was slightly greater than that in the control group, although it was not statistically significant. These findings suggested G-CSF prevented cardiac remodeling in canine model not by increasing the cardiomyocytes but by increasing the vessel density and cell numbers in the infarcted area.