Temporal Coding and Palatability in Gustatory Cortex

味觉皮层的时间编码和适口性

• 批准号: 9217638
• 负责人: Donald B Katz
• 金额: $ 31.08万
• 依托单位: BRANDEIS UNIVERSITY
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2006
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2006-04-01 至 2021-03-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9217638
• 关键词: Affect; Amygdaloid structure; Appearance; Area; Automobile Driving; Axon; Back; Behavior; Behavioral; Biological; Brain; Brain Stem; Brain region; Cells; Child; Code; Complex; Consumption; Coupling; Data; Decision Making; Deglutition; Digastric muscle; Eating; Eating Disorders; Electrodes; Electromyography; Evaluation; Feedback; Food; Generations; Goals; Grant; Hypothalamic structure; Interneurons; Knock-out; Lateral; Measures; Medial; Neurons; Optics; Oral cavity; Palate; Parents; Pathway interactions; Perception; Prefrontal Cortex; Pregnancy; Process; Publications; Rattus; Reporting; Research; Research Project Grants; Sampling; Sensory; Services; Speed; Stimulus; System; Taste Perception; Testing; Thalamic structure; Thinking; Time; Tongue; Work; behavior test; brain behavior; brain circuitry; experimental study; feeding; fighting; genioglossus muscle; indexing; insight; network architecture; novel; optogenetics; oral behavior; orofacial; public health relevance; relating to nervous system; response; sensory system; sugar; sweet taste perception; taste system; tool

 DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): We like to think of taste as working relatively simply-a sweet taste is recognized as sweet by virtue of activating certain cells on the tongue, and that information is used to drive neurons that cause us to eat more of whatever food is in our mouths. The truth, however, is much more interesting: a taste hits the tongue, and complex circuits in the brain go into action, passing food-related information back and forth as the system as a whole decides whether the morsel is palatable enough to swallow. My lab studies this process by recording from multiple parts of the taste system while active rats are sampling various tastes. Our work allows us to observe this decision-making process in action, as taste cortex reports, in turn, that a taste is on the tongue, that the taste is (say) sugar, and that it the rat) currently likes the taste; this last step appears to be one arrived at suddenly, in a moment o insight-the food rolls around in the rat's mouth for 0.5-1.5 seconds, and then the decision is made. The research that we're currently proposing will study this process. First, we will do a direct, rigorous evaluation of whether the appearance of palatability- related information in cortical neurons actually predicts the behavioral decision in single trials, and testing whether loss of cortical function perturbs the decision process; in a complementary experiment, we will test whether cortical function changes appropriately when one decision is made easier. Finally, we will look at where that information in cortex comes from, by recording from cortex while temporarily silencing other brain areas and pathways proposed to be involved in taste decisions. As a whole, this research project has the potential to completely change the way we think about taste, and to usher in new thinking about perception in general-thinking that makes a great deal more biological sense, given the complexity of brain circuitry.

 描述（由申请人提供）：我们喜欢认为味觉的作用相对简单——通过激活舌头上的某些细胞，甜味被识别为甜味，并且该信息被用来驱动神经元，导致我们吃更多的东西然而，无论我们嘴里是什么食物，事实都要有趣得多：味道到达舌头后，大脑中的复杂电路就会开始工作，随着系统来回传递与食物相关的信息。 我的实验室通过记录味觉系统的多个部分来研究这个过程，同时活跃的老鼠采样不同的味道，我们的工作使我们能够观察到这一决策过程的实际情况。味觉皮层反过来报告说，舌头上有一种味道，这种味道是（比如说）糖，而老鼠目前喜欢这种味道；这最后一步似乎是突然到达的，在一瞬间。洞察力——食物在老鼠的肚子里滚来滚去嘴里0.5-1.5秒，然后做出决定，我们目前提出的研究将研究这个过程，首先，我们将对皮质神经元中是否确实出现了适口性相关信息进行直接、严格的评估。预测单次试验中的行为决策，以及测试皮质功能的丧失是否会干扰决策过程；在一项补充实验中，我们将测试当一个决策变得更容易时，皮质功能是否会发生适当的变化。皮质来自，通过从皮层进行记录，同时暂时沉默与味觉决策有关的其他大脑区域和通路，总体而言，该研究项目有可能彻底改变我们对味觉的思考方式，并引发对一般感知的新思考。 -考虑到大脑回路的复杂性，这种想法具有更多的生物学意义。