Until a few years ago, when talking about the response to food, the scientific community focused on digestive response and the effect it had on patients, based on symptoms they showed. These studies did not consider the sensations of individuals when eating food, or other factors, such as hunger at the time of intake. Now in the Vall d'Hebron Research Institute (VHIR), Teodora Pribic, predoctoral researcher from Serbia, studies these factors in the group of Physiology and Pathophysiology of the Digestive Tract, led by Dr. Fernando Azpiroz.Teodora has been working for two years with Dr. Azpiroz, under the European training project http://www.neurogut.eu/" Neurogut. Her doctoral thesis is focused on the relationship between digestive sensations and the activity of the central nervous system. In other words, she analyses, through various scientific experiments, which factors of the food or the individuals themselves determines the response to the food, both at the sensations level and welfare level."I am very happy with my job because I know that if it works, we can help many people," Teodora said. One of the projects in which she is working is about the relationship of aroma with food intake. "Everyone agrees that the food has to be healthy, but to make it healthy, it must be appetizing, and in this sense, we are seeing that the aroma determines our response to the food," says the researcher. Therefore, she is investigating how to, in a safe manner and through the aroma, a healthy food became more attractive or, conversely, how to make an appetizing meal a healthier meal. In addition to the study of the aroma, she also investigates how to determine the response of food in terms of hunger, and what brain circuits are activated depending on the food, among other basic and clinical studies.According to Dr. Azpiroz, "Teodora Pribic's work will allow us to further our understanding of cognitive and hedonic factors involved in the response to food". This, he adds, will allow them to develop a set of quantitative and objective biomarkers to assess the effects of ingested food, and thus to characterize the pathophysiology of diseases of the digestive tract.The Neurogut project is the first European working group in gastroenterology dedicated to neuronal regulation of intestinal functions. Funded by the 7th Framework Programme of the European Commission, it aims to train young researchers in the field of Neurogastroenterology through sojourns of 3 years in European groups of scientific excellence. Like Teodora, there are 15 researchers who are doing their doctoral thesis in this field.