Investigating the role of GPR162 in hedonic behaviors

摘要 快乐或有益的经历是一个适应过程，对健康的心理健康至关重要。 功能体验快乐的能力归因于个人的享乐主义基调或对一个人的“喜欢”。 奖励在病理学上，低快乐情绪或快感缺乏是体验快乐的能力，这是一个关键特征， 萧条快乐音调可以通过对食物或液体的适口性来测量。最近，GPR162已经 与享乐性食物摄入有关，这表明这种受体有助于奖励相关的行为， 设定享乐主义基调GPR162是孤儿G蛋白偶联受体（GPCR），因为其内源性配体是 未知，是IDG合格基因。该提案的目标是确定GPR162对享乐的作用 通过使用自然奖励（蔗糖）测量适口性，并进一步研究其对其他 奖励方面，包括激励和强化。该项目将使用病毒介导的基因转移 一种在丘脑核中敲低或过表达GPR162的方法，该区域已知介导 与奖励有关的行为。最后，我们将开始讨论GPR 162的信令能力。我们的首字母 体外研究结果显示GPR162激活RhoA通路。在这里，我们将把这一系列的研究转移到我们的老鼠身上。 模型，以更好地了解GPR162信号。这项研究的结果将“照亮”一个 通过鉴定GPR162在奖励相关行为中的特定作用， 为科学界提供试剂和数据。

Abstract Pleasure or rewarding experiences serves as an adaptive process and are essential for healthy psychological functioning. The ability to experience pleasure is attributed to an individual’s hedonic tone or the ‘liking’ of a reward. Pathologically, low hedonic tone or anhedonia is the ability to experience pleasure, a key feature in depression. Hedonic tone can be measured by the palatability towards food or liquids. Recently, GPR162 has been implicated in hedonic food intake suggesting that this receptor contributes to reward-related behaviors by setting hedonic tone. GPR162 is an orphan G protein coupled receptor (GPCR) as its endogenous ligand is unknown and is an IDG eligible gene. The goal of this proposal is to identify the role of GPR162 towards hedonic tone by measuring palatability using a natural reward (sucrose) and to further examine its contribution to other aspects of reward including motivation and reinforcement. This project will use a viral mediated gene transfer approach to either knockdown or overexpress GPR162 in the nucleus accumbens, a region known to mediate reward-related behaviors. Finally, we will begin to address the signaling capabilities of GPR162. Our initial in vitro findings show GPR162 activates the RhoA pathway. Here we will move this line of research into our mouse models to gain a better understanding of GPR162 signaling. The results of this study will “illuminate” an understudied protein by identifying the specific role of GPR162 in reward-related behaviors and by generating reagents and data for the scientific community.