Time and the forebrain coding of taste learning.

时间和味觉学习的前脑编码。

• 批准号: 7083542
• 负责人: Donald B Katz
• 金额: $ 29.77万
• 依托单位: BRANDEIS UNIVERSITY
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2005
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2005-07-01 至 2010-06-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/7083542
• 关键词: amygdala; behavioral /social science research tag; brain electrical activity; conditioning; electrophysiology; laboratory rat; learning; neural information processing; neural plasticity; prosencephalon; single cell analysis; taste

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Little is known about what happens as animals learn to associate meaning with taste, although it is known that gustatory cortex (GC) and amygdala (AMG) are involved in the process. The goal of these experiments is to record simultaneously from these areas as rats learn to associate illness with a taste that they formerly thought palatable (this kind of learning is called conditioned taste aversion, or CTA). Ensembles of GC and AMG single neurons will be recorded through the entire learning process, as the rats progress from being naive to trained. The specific aims of the project are: 1) to determine the aspects of temporal codes in both brain areas that change during learning, as well as how interactions between the areas change; 2) to examine whether GC and AMG are specifically involved in learned reflexes that are produced as the rats try to expel the newly noxious taste; 3) to test whether the inactivation of AMG during training keeps these changes from appearing during testing; and 4) to test whether the development of plasticity in AMG is a specific part of these changes in temporal coding. Overall, this project will shed light on the neural mechanisms underlying an experiential phenomenon that affects (sometimes adversely) the lives of all mammals, including humans.

描述（由申请人提供）：尽管已知味觉皮层（GC）和杏仁核（AMG）参与了这一过程，但我们对动物学会将意义与味觉联系起来时发生的情况知之甚少。这些实验的目标是在老鼠学会将疾病与它们以前认为可口的味道联系起来时，从这些区域同时记录（这种学习称为条件性味觉厌恶，或 CTA）。随着老鼠从幼稚到训练有素，GC 和 AMG 单个神经元的集合将在整个学习过程中被记录下来。该项目的具体目标是：1）确定两个大脑区域的时间编码在学习过程中发生变化，以及这些区域之间的相互作用如何变化； 2) 检查 GC 和 AMG 是否专门参与大鼠试图排出新的有害味道时产生的习得反射； 3）测试训练期间AMG的失活是否可以防止这些变化在测试期间出现； 4) 测试 AMG 可塑性的发展是否是这些时间编码变化的特定部分。总体而言，该项目将揭示一种体验现象背后的神经机制，这种现象会影响（有时是不利的）所有哺乳动物（包括人类）的生活。