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| Poster #282 Capsaicin sensitization during consumption of a real food is non-linear |
| Paige M. Cunningham & John E. Hayes The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, United States |
Prior work in model systems indicates the amount of oral burn evoked by capsaicin, a TRPV1 agonist found in chili peppers, increases monotonically with repeat acute exposure, increasing by nearly ~52% over 10 trials when applied to the tongue via cotton swab. However, this does not match lived experience during eating, so we investigated capsaicin sensitization using a real food. After orientation to a generalized Linear Magnitude Scale and a generalized Bipolar Hedonic Scale, 75 participants received a series of 10 identical chicken tikka masala samples containing hot Hungarian paprika sequentially. Samples were served every 30 seconds and participants were instructed to consume each 15 g sample in its entirety before rating oral burn intensity and liking. Random coefficient models revealed a curvilinear relationship between repeated exposure and burn. Specifically, with each additional sample consumed, burn increased (p<0.001), but this trajectory had a negative quadratic coefficient (p=0.002), indicating a plateau with additional exposure. Hedonic trajectories differed from burn intensity, dropping across exposures (p=0.01). This may reflect a simple effect wherein liking dropped as burn increased outside an optimum range, but we cannot rule out the well-known phenomenon of sensory-specific satiety. Here, we build on previous findings in model systems indicating capsaicin sensitization increases burn monotonically, by showing that oral burn during eating has a quadratic trajectory characterized by initial sensitization within the first few trials, followed by a plateau. This discrepancy may relate to locus or size of stimulus field (small loci on the tongue via cotton swab versus whole mouth during naturalistic eating) or tongue movement (static versus dynamic). |