Understanding the contribution of the mediodorsal thalamus in gustatory processing

了解内侧丘脑在味觉处理中的贡献

• 批准号: 10549749
• 负责人: Roberto Vincis
• 金额: $ 36.08万
• 依托单位: FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2022-01-13 至 2026-12-31
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10549749
• 关键词: Affective; Amygdaloid structure; Anatomy; Animals; Area; Association Learning; Attention; Auditory; Behavior; Behavior assessment; Behavioral; Behavioral Paradigm; Biological Models; Brain; Brain region; Cell Nucleus; Citric Acid; Cognitive; Communication; Complex; Cues; Data; Eating; Electrophysiology (science); Feeding behaviors; Food; Frequencies; Goals; Incentives; Investigation; Knowledge; Learning; Measures; Medial Dorsal Nucleus; Modification; Mus; Negative Valence; Neuroanatomy; Neurons; Outcome; Pathway interactions; Positive Valence; Process; Property; Quinine; Reporting; Research; Rewards; Rodent; Role; Sampling; Sensory; Shapes; Signal Transduction; Sodium Chloride; Specificity; Stimulus; Sucrose; System; Taste Perception; Testing; Thalamic structure; Time; Training; Water; Work; behavioral response; design; experience; experimental study; genetic manipulation; hedonic; high reward; mind control; multisensory; neural; response; sensory input; sensory integration; sensory stimulus; taste stimuli; virtual

PROJECT SUMMARY Recent studies on the gustatory portion of the insular cortex (gustatory cortex, GC) have demonstrated its role in integrating sensory, affective, and cognitive signals associated with the experience of food. Indeed, GC neurons do not just encode the chemosensory features of gustatory stimuli but can also process hedonic value (i.e. liking or disliking) and information on multisensory stimuli anticipating taste. Understanding how GC performs the complex integration of chemosensory, affective, and anticipatory information is one of the major efforts in the field. It is generally believed that GC achieves this level of integration by processing inputs from sensory and limbic areas including the gustatory thalamus (VPMpc), the basolateral amygdala (BLA), and the mediodorsal thalamic nuclei (MD). While the functions of VPMpc and BLA have been studied, very little is known regarding the contribution of MD in taste. Using mice as a model system, the proposed research will rely on multiple experimental approaches to test the general hypothesis that the MD conveys taste quality, reward-related, and associative signals that contribute to processes in the GC that can impact taste-related behaviors. Specific Aim 1 will use electrophysiological recordings and behavioral training to characterize the taste and taste-predicting cues response profile in the MD. Specific Aim 2 will combine neural recordings, behavioral training and chemogenetic manipulation to unveil the effect of MD inputs on GC response profiles pertaining to taste quality and taste-predicting anticipatory cues. Finally, the experiment in Specific Aim 3 will rely on a behavioral task and chemogenetic manipulation to determine the role of the MD-GC connection in helping to establish incentive values of neutral auditory cues in the acquisition of cue-taste associations. Altogether, the results obtained from these experiments will provide a comprehensive system-level investigation on the role of MD in taste processing. If successful, this work will lead the way for the MD thalamus as a potential crucial brain region involved in the integration and communication of behaviorally relevant chemosensory information.

项目概要 最近对岛叶皮层味觉部分（gustatory cortex，GC）的研究证明了其作用 整合与食物体验相关的感官、情感和认知信号。确实，GC 神经元不仅编码味觉刺激的化学感觉特征，还可以处理享乐价值 （即喜欢或不喜欢）以及有关预期味道的多感官刺激的信息。了解GC如何进行 执行化学感觉、情感和预期信息的复杂整合是主要的之一 领域的努力。 人们普遍认为，GC 通过处理来自感觉和边缘系统的输入来实现这种集成水平 包括味觉丘脑 (VPMpc)、基底外侧杏仁核 (BLA) 和内侧丘脑的区域 原子核（MD）。虽然 VPMpc 和 BLA 的功能已被研究，但人们对它们知之甚少。 MD在口味上的贡献。使用小鼠作为模型系统，拟议的研究将依赖于多个 实验方法来检验 MD 传达口味质量、奖励相关和 关联信号有助于 GC 中的过程，从而影响与味觉相关的行为。具体目标 1 将使用电生理记录和行为训练来表征味觉和味觉预测 MD 中的提示响应曲线。具体目标 2 将结合神经记录、行为训练和 化学遗传学操作揭示 MD 输入对与味道质量相关的 GC 响应曲线的影响 和味道预测的预期线索。最后，特定目标 3 中的实验将依赖于行为任务和 化学遗传学操作以确定 MD-GC 连接在帮助建立激励方面的作用 中性听觉线索在获得线索-味觉关联中的价值。 总而言之，从这些实验中获得的结果将提供全面的系统级 MD在味觉处理中的作用研究。如果成功，这项工作将为 MD 丘脑引领道路 作为一个潜在的关键大脑区域，参与行为相关的整合和交流 化学感应信息。