Ivan De Araujo is a director at the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics in Tübingen, Germany, along with Peter Dayan.

De Araujo's doctoral thesis focused on cortical mechanisms linked to the pleasurable perceptions associated with taste and flavors.

Ten years later, the research resulted in the identification of the vagus nerve as a key conductor of reward signals from the body to the brain.

[citation needed] More recently, De Araujo and colleagues revealed a novel function for the duodenal glands of Brunner.

Rather than buffering gastric acidity, as usually believed, the study discovered that the glands are major controllers of mucosal immunity and microbiome population.