We have just talked about how the endocrine system control whether you feel full or hungry.

Now in fact for the perseption of the food quality. The endocrine system comes a little bit later. The first aspect of really perception really comes from the nervous system. So I'm going to talk about the neural control. Now first of all let's do a review of nervous system and how we perceive a particular sensation. In fact in a nervous system, there are two main classes of cells. The first group, we call that the nerve cells or we call neuron. These are cells which is specialized for electrical signal transmission. So electrical signal, remember that it's just like the electrical wire that we have at home. Whenever you have a signal come in, quickly the electricity goes to the other side. So therefore actually they would respond very quickly over a long distance. The second group of cell we call the glial cells and these sometimes we refer to them as supporting cells. And they are not capable of transmitting electricity but this kind of they, they become to shield, to shield off this electric wire. Now what happen is that when we have a neuron. This is the neuron indicated here as the green cell. It will have different kind of processes. The short one here is illustrated as dentress the inputs. And the very long one here we call it the axons. These are the output. And usually when you have one neuron this neuron is going to be connected to another neuron. The axon should be connected to the dendrites. And all the support cells are here, wrapping around this particular axons. Kind of to protect them. And to make sure that the electricity is being transmitted within this particular wire. Now having that, we have these dendrites and axons coming all together.

And in our brain we have like billions of these cells where nervous system neurons and glial cells support cell, all put together. They help us to process all the signals input. And the way that they process it is that whenever the dendrites get activated, they would trigger some sort of like an action potential. Think of it as the transmission of electrons across this wire so that they can all go to the end of it so that it will lead to the release of some chemical to be connected to another neurons. Okay. So that is what we refer to the process of acting action potential transmitted from one place to another. Now perception of sensation involves multiple steps. We need to have the stimuli and what kind of stimuli are we talking about? Temperature, pain, cold, visual sensation, sound, how things smell, odor and whether they have specific taste, whether they're sweet or bitter. And for each of them, in fact they require a very specific type of receptor to perceive them. For example on our tongue we use receptor which would not allow us to hear. In our ear we can hear something but they won't allow us to see. So these are specific receptors, corresponding to specific sensations. And when they are all input, they would all go to our brain and get integrated together in our cerebral cortex. And they would integrate a signal and tells us what we perceive. Now having that, the sensory input that we are talking about are so called taste, smell, sight, touch and sound. And in fact for whatever food we eat a lot of this stimulation will be activated. And so what are they sensing, taste we are referring to whether are salty, sweet or sour. How they smell some aroma? How do they look? What color do they have? What temperature? What texture? And sometimes what's the sound that they can produce? All this combined together, it gives us an integration of all the senses in our brain.

So the perception of all the sensation, the important part of is these physical stimulation. Essentially it come to our brain. It gives us a conscious perception of what exactly is in the outside world. Now later on I'm going to talk about another aspect which is about this human body on the subconsciousness. And a lot of experience we accumulate. And collectively it tells us whether our sensory stimulation will give us a satisfaction of eating certain food. Now when we talk about sight, color, visual appearance, all this is telling us what the food is like. Think about that if, in the Asian world, you are a monkey, you are an animal. And you simply walk around. When you want to see food and you want to find food, what's the first thing you do? You want to see them. You can see them from a far. Whatever color it is, what kind of shape it is. So therefore sight become the first element when you try be in contact with food that you want to have it activated. And certainly we're going to do some demonstration with you later on that how does visual perception in fact allow us to descrimate what is a good food and what is a bad food. How about the second element. The second element is that when you have some food around you do you immediately put them in your mouth? Not necessarily. Usually you smell them. you have them maybe a few meters ahead of you but immediately you can tell that the food is around because you can smell a particular odor. So therefore our olfactory function, smelling it is the second thing that come. And finally you put it into your mouth and you can taste it. Now so all these would collectively give you a sense of what the flavor is. Well, after you see the food, you smell the food and you taste the food. Now the food is in your mouth. We would evoke another type of sensation which is the texture. So when the food is in your mouth you'll be biting on it, the teeth will be in contact with it, your tongue and buccal cavity will be in contact with the food.

And when you crunch on it the food will be broken down and so all this it tell you what the texture of it is. Whether it's hard or soft whether it's chewy. What size it is. Now that become another important sensation that we want to stimulate. And of course sound. When you're biting on something, if they are very hard or very very crunchy, certainly you will hear the sound. And that sound need to be somehow consistent with what the food is. So later on we're going to show you another demonstration how the sounds and their consistency with the texture of the food need to be considered when you are having certain dish prepared. Now of course we talk about this neuro input. These are using electrical signal. We've also talk about endocrine system which is having a lot of delay. Now how do they integrate together? In fact we find that this neuro input sometimes they are not simply standing alone by themselves. They do have impact on how we process the food. And how our hormonal and enzyme system in our body will be responding and influencing our satiety. How's it, I can use two examples to illustrate that. For example, we say that, when we have a individual, which is stimulated or exposed to some stimulus. of this sensory input. And if you feed them with some carbohydrates or so. You'll find that the one which who's subjective to this stimulus. They would have a higher level of glucose. And at the same time it results in a significant increase of the insulin. Suggesting that the neural input somehow would be associated or is stimulating or triggering some response in the endocrine system. So that they would respond more effectively. The same thing. We can have individual who are taking some fat capsules that simply swallow them into the stomach. But then one is being fed with some full-fat cream cheese. Some fat and the other one not.

So again feed, feeding them with these crunches as a sensory stimulation would result in the production of all the needed enzyme to convert these fats into the tri-glycerol more effectively. So again it suggests that the neural input, the stimulus in our body using our sensory organ. Your mouth, your olfactory function, the sight and sound. All these somehow can be coupled together with the endocrine system. So if you want to prepare a good dish, you need to consider not just about the sensory input. You need to consider the endocrine system. Combined together, you would feel that the dish is delicious.