Little is known about the relationship between sleep, chemosensation, and food perception. Given that sleep curtailment is a becoming more prevalent in the developed world and that short sleep duration is routinely associated with weight gain and obesity, understanding the mechanisms that drive this relationship is of great interest to public health advocates. Further, this relationship may contribute to poor test-retest reliability in food sensory studies. Therefore, the primary objective of this body of work was to characterize the relationship between sleep duration, chemosensation, and hedonic sensory perception with a focus on sweet taste perception.In chapters 1-2, the linear relationships between chemosensation and sleep duration and architecture are assessed. A total of 56 non-obese female participants and 51 male participants who denied having diagnosed sleep disorders completed testing across the two studies. Sleep was measured for two nights using a single-channel (A1-A2) electroencephalogram-(EEG) (Zmachine). Sweet taste threshold and preference, as well as olfactory threshold, recognition ability, and pleasantness ratings, were evaluated. Sweet taste preference was correlated with total sleep time (TST) (Females: p=0.0074, males: p=0.0111) as well as with several individual stages of sleep. For males only, odor identification ability was positively associated with TST (P=0.0187) and REM sleep duration (P=0.0424). Participants grouped into shorter sleep groups and low REM+SWS preferred significantly greater sucrose concentrations than those in longer and high REM+SWS groups (Females: p=0.041, 0.049, Males: p=0.0420, 0.0039, respectively). Sex differences in the effect of short sleep duration on chemosensory function overall were found to be minimal.In chapters 3-5, a sleep curtailment intervention design was employed to assess the effect of a one night of 33% reduction in habitual sleep duration on perception of both model solution and complex food stimuli. Forty-one participants recorded a habitual and curtailed night of sleep using a single-channel electroencephalograph. After curtailment, a significant increase in preferred solution sweetener concentration (p<0.001 for sucrose and sucralose sweeteners) was observed. The slope of sucrose sweet liking increased after curtailment (p=0.001). The slope of sucralose liking also increased, but the effect was not significant (p=0.129). Another forty-one participants, using similar methodology, evaluated energy- and nutrient-matched solid and liquid oat products after a night of curtailed sleep. Overall (p=0.047) and flavor (p=0.017) liking slopes across measured concentrations were steeper after curtailment, suggesting that sweeter versions of the oat products were liked more after sleep curtailment. Sweet intensity perception of the was not altered by sleep curtailment in either study. Hierarchical cluster analysis was used to classify participants by sweet liking phenotype. Phenotypes were not found to moderate the effect of sleep curtailment on sweet taste, but did predict preferred sweetener concentration. These findings contribute to our understanding of biological mechanisms that drive human hedonic response to food and contribute a currently missing link in the proposed causal chain by which insufficient sleep can lead to excess energy intake.
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