Functional Organization of the Central Gustatory System

中枢味觉系统的功能组织

• 批准号: 8521236
• 负责人: Alan C Spector
• 金额: $ 28.62万
• 依托单位: FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2010
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2010-09-01 至 2015-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/8521236
• 关键词: Affect; Affective; Animal Model; Animals; Behavioral; Behavioral Assay; Brain; Clinical; Clinical Management; Complex; Data; Detection; Development; Discrimination; Disease; Equilibrium; Goals; Health; Human; Hypogeusia; Ibotenic Acid; Impairment; Injury; Insula of Reil; Intake; Lesion; Link; Literature; Location; Maintenance; Measures; Modality; Modeling; Molecular; Neurobiology; Neurons; Nutritional status; Obesity; Outcome; Pathway interactions; Patients; Pharmacology; Phenotype; Physiological; Population; Procedures; Process; Prosencephalon; Psychophysics; Publishing; Quality of life; Rattus; Relative (related person); Rodent; Role; Sensory; Series; Signal Transduction; Site; Specificity; Stimulus; Structure; System; Taste Perception; Testing; Therapeutic Intervention; Vision; animal model development; base; behavior observation; conditioning; design; drinking; feeding; hedonic; infancy; parabrachial nucleus; preference; programs; public health relevance; research study

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Injury to structures in the central gustatory system such as the insula and operculum, the site of primary gustatory cortex in humans, can alter the flow of ascending and descending taste-related information through the brain which has great potential to disrupt normal gustatory processing and can have detrimental consequences on health and quality of life. As more advances are made in discerning the pharmacology, connectivity, and physiological phenotype of taste-responsive neurons in the brain, it is becoming increasingly critical for the field to develop and apply appropriate behavioral assays in animal models to explicitly link neurobiological processes to taste function. There is evidence in the literature that patients with damage involving primary gustatory cortex display hypogeusia and have difficulty identifying and recognizing tastes. In rats, lesions in the gustatory cortex retard, but do not eliminate, the acquisition of a conditioned taste aversion, retard acquisition of taste-based anticipatory contrast, and impair the expression of taste neophobia. In contrast, these lesions cause little, if any, effect on unconditioned taste preference and avoidance and do not disrupt taste preference conditioning. The prevailing view in the literature is that animals with gustatory cortex lesions display normal taste detection and discriminability, but, in actuality, this remains to be explicitly tested. Virtually all of the experiments on the effects of gustatory cortex lesions in rats have involved assessment of either conditioned or unconditioned affective/hedonic responsiveness to taste compounds. Moreover, with few exceptions, taste palatability has been assessed with intake and preference tests, which can be heavily influenced by postingestive factors and provide only a partial analysis of affective responsiveness. Thus, conclusions regarding the functional role of gustatory cortex are based on a relatively constrained set of behavioral observations. The goal of the proposed series of experiments is to fill this interpretive void by explicitly testing the necessity of the gustatory cortex in the maintenance of sensory-discriminative vs. affective taste function. Using a technically sophisticated apparatus (gustometer), we plan to test rats with and without ibotenic acid-induced lesions in the gustatory cortex in a variety of behavioral tasks designed to measure taste sensitivity (Exp. 1), taste quality discrimination (Exp.2 & 3), the qualitative specificity of conditioned taste aversions (Exp. 3), and unconditioned affective responsiveness to taste stimuli as assessed by brief access licking tests (Exp. 4) and oromotor taste reactivity (Exp. 5). We predict that these lesions will blunt sensitivity and compromise the animal's ability to discriminate among taste stimuli that are used as sensory signals in psychophysical tasks, without affecting the palatability of the compounds. Regardless of the specific outcomes of these experiments, the data generated should provide a functional context in which to understand central gustatory processing. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: Impairments in the sense of taste can be very debilitating, adversely affecting the quality of life in such patients and jeopardizing their health. Moreover, given the role of taste in feeding and drinking, damage to the gustatory system can potentially contribute to more complex clinical disorders involving nutritional status, hydromineral balance, and obesity. The development of animal models, in which the gustatory system can be experimentally manipulated and the perceptual consequences assessed, is essential to gain an understanding of the underlying neurobiology of normal and abnormal taste function - a first step in refining the clinical management of patients suffering damage to gustatory brain sites and potentially leading to the development of therapeutic interventions.

描述（由申请人提供）：对中央阵阵系统中的结构的伤害，例如人类主要的脾脏皮层的岛状和孔，可以改变通过大脑的上升和降临味觉相关的信息的流动，这有很大的潜力破坏正常的味道处理，并可能对健康和质量的生活和质量造成损害。随着在识别大脑味觉响应性神经元的药理学，连通性和生理表型方面取得的进步，该领域在动物模型中开发和应用适当的行为分析以明确将神经生物学过程链接到味觉功能变得越来越重要。文献中有证据表明，涉及原发性皮层的损害的患者表现出低藻，并且难以识别和识别口味。在大鼠中，味觉皮层延迟中的病变，但不会消除条件味觉厌恶的获取，基于味觉的预期对比的智障获取，并损害了味觉新恐惧症的表达。相比之下，这些病变对无条件的口味偏好和避免的影响很小（如果有的话），并且不会破坏口味偏好条件。文献中普遍的观点是，具有味道皮质病变的动物表现出正常的味道检测和可区分性，但实际上，这尚待明确测试。几乎所有关于大鼠味皮层病变影响的实验都涉及评估条件或无条件的情感/享乐/享乐对味道的反应性。此外，除了少数例外，口味可口性已通过摄入量和偏好测试进行了评估，这可能会受到后产后因素的严重影响，并且仅提供部分对情感反应能力的分析。因此，关于味觉皮层功能作用的结论是基于相对受约束的行为观察集的。拟议的一系列实验的目的是通过明确测试味觉皮层的必要性来填补这种解释性空隙，以维持感觉歧视性与情感味道功能。使用技术复杂的设备（Gustometer），我们计划在多种行为任务中测试有或没有尼布替酸诱发的脾性病变的大鼠，旨在衡量味觉敏感的各种行为任务（旨在衡量味觉质量差异）（Exp2＆3）（Exp.2＆3），对味觉的启发（expiention tailtive taility taintive taility taintive taunditive timpientiation taunsive interive interive interive fortive toctive toction and taundity to antervientiation。舔测试（实验4）和Oromotor味道反应性（exp。5）。我们预测，这些病变将使动物在心理物理任务中用作感觉信号的味觉刺激之间的敏感性并损害动物的能力，而不会影响化合物的可口性。无论这些实验的具体结果如何，生成的数据都应提供一个功能上下文，以了解中心味道处理。 公共卫生相关性：从品味意义上讲的损害可能会令人衰弱，从而对此类患者的生活质量产生不利影响并危害他们的健康。此外，鉴于味道在喂养和饮酒中的作用，对味觉系统的损害可能会导致更复杂的临床疾病，涉及营养状况，氢化层平衡和肥胖。动物模型的开发可以在其中进行实验操纵，并评估了感知后果，对于了解正常和异常味觉功能的潜在神经生物学至关重要 - 精炼对味觉性脑部位损害的患者的临床管理，可能导致治疗性干预措施的发展。