A new study suggests that the practice of drinking wine can boost brain activity and increase mental stamina. Yale neuroscientist, Gordon Shepherd, reveals that drinking wine activates more grey matter in the brain than listening to music and solving math equations. When tasting wine, our brain works to asses and interpret the flavor, from smell to sip to swallow. It is a composite process.
In his book Neuroenology: How the Brain Creates the Taste of Wine, Shepherd explains how the connection works. “You don’t just put wine in your mouth and leave it there. You move it about and then swallow it, which is a very complex motor act.” He compares the process to the assessment of deciphering color. “The objects we see don’t have color themselves – light hits them and bounces off. It’s when light strikes our eyes that it activates systems in the brain that create color from those different wavelengths,” he explains. “Similarly, the molecules in wine don’t have taste or flavor, but when they stimulate our brain, the brain creates flavor the same way it creates color.”
Source: Independent, December 2017