In rodents there is an important gustatory relay in the pontine parabrachial nucleus (PbN) upon which much centrifugal modulation occurs to guide complex feeding behaviors. From the PbN two separate projections arise, one which synapses in the parvicellular medial tip of the ventroposteromedial nucleus of the thalamus, which in turn sends axons to taste cortex. This pathway is thought to be largely sensory in nature. A second pathway projects widely to the ventral forebrain areas including hypothalamus, and amygdala and is thought to be largely affective in nature. Recent support for this dissociation comes from Hajnal and Norgren who found that lesions of the pons but not the thalamus disrupted dopamine overflow in the accumbens during sucrose licking. Remarkably, the pontine taste relay does not appear to exist in human and nonhuman primates, or if it does exist, its role is much reduced. The aim of this symposium is to outline the role of the PbN in sensory and affective processing of taste in rodents and to speculate upon the implications of interspecies differences for tasting and feeding in primates. The specific aim of the introductory comments will be to provide an overview of evidence for these interspecies differences to set the stage for the remaining papers.