COMPARISON OF THE PATTERN OF THE BRAIN ELECTRICAL ACTIVITY DURING THE TASTING OF DIFFERENT SWEETENERS USING ADAPTIVE GABOR COEFFICIENTS

Sugar has been the main sweetener in the human diet for centuries representing a high percentage of daily energy consumption with little added nutritional value. There is also association of high sugar intake with various negative health conditions, such as obesity and diabetes, this fact has led to a strong need to totally or partially substitute sugar in foods for alternative low-calorie sweeteners. This substitution, however, is linked to consumer acceptance requirements, since preferences are associated with several factors, some of which are difficult to assess. This study aimed to evaluate the pattern of brain electrical activity of healthy subjects during the tasting of beverages (passion fruit juice) sweetened with caloric sweeteners (sucrose) and low-calorie sweeteners (aspartame and sucralose). The goal is to understand whether the brain processes caloric and low-caloric sweeteners differently to better understand consumer perceptions of them. During tasting the brain electrical activity was acquired using gold surface electrodes placed on scalp in C3-C4 positions of 10-20 system of electrodes placement. The signal was sampled at 512 Hz using a portable digital electroencephalograph. Later Adaptative Gabor Coefficients (AGR) are calculated. The AGR maps a one-dimensional signal s(t) into a two-dimensional space of normalized gaussian functions hp(t) of adjustable variance αp and center time-frequency (tp, fp). Each point in this time-frequency space represents a coefficient Bp indicating which spectral components are present at each time point. A comparison of the first four AGR coefficients showed no separation between them, this result may be an indication that caloric and non-caloric sweeteners are processed similarly by the brain. This is still a preliminary study but have potential for contributing both to academic studies and to the food industry that could use these results in the formulation of low-calorie products.