The upside to modern cancer treatment, like chemotherapy, is obvious; people are living more, and living longer. The downside is that some food tastes terrible. 

Chemotherapy, by design, kills all fast-growing cells in the body. As cancer cells die, so do all the healthy fast-growing cells, including the cells responsible for hair growth and taste buds. So your hair falls out and everything tastes metallic.

"Here they are, critically ill, needing good nutrition more than ever, and they can't enjoy food? It's beyond unfair," said Dan Han, a psychologist at the University of Kentucky. 

Han believes that because cancer treatment has often moved beyond saving lives that quality of life issues, specifically, the enjoyment of food, should be measured as a clinical outcome for patients. 

"Like most clinicians, when patients brought up the issue of reduced or distorted flavor perception (if they brought it up at all), I was sympathetic but not motivated, because there's not much we can do to help," said Han.

But he met chef Fred Morin, owner of the restaurant Joe Beef, who is a bioengineer by training and hugely interested in the concept of neurogastronomy, which seeks to study the human brain and the behavior that influences how we experience food. Morin encouraged Han to read a book by Yale neuroscientist Gordon Shepherd, who coined the term in 2006.  

That chance meeting was the spark for the founding of the International Society of Neurogastronomy (ISN), and last week more than 200 scientists, patients, chefs, foodies and others gathered at UK for the inaugural ISN Symposium, sharing their knowledge and exploring opportunities to improve quality of life for people who have lost their perception of taste or smell due to cancer, brain injury, stroke, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, or other neurological disorders.

During breaks, participants were encouraged to visit eight tasting stations, where experiments demonstrated how the perception of flavor is shaped by more than just the tongue. Attendees wore blindfolds, sniffed scent jars, held their noses, and more while they sampled. At one station, tasters eating a pink cookie while listening to gentle music were astonished to learn that it was equally as sweet as the black cookie paired with harsh music.

While neurogastronomy is still in its infancy, they want to link neuroscientists, culinary professionals, food scientists and agriculture scientists.