The neural basis of fatty acid taste

项目摘要 脂肪是一种热量很高的食物来源，它产生的能量大约是普通食物的两倍。 每单位质量的碳水化合物或蛋白质。膳食脂质由甘油三酯和脂肪酸组成。 酸，越来越多的证据表明，它是由味觉系统检测到的游离脂肪酸。 脂肪酸的味道非常可口，可以促进食物消耗，激活哺乳动物的奖励中心， 并导致导致许多代谢相关疾病的享乐性进食。尽管他在 虽然饮食脂肪是代谢性疾病的病因，但人们对味觉系统如何检测饮食脂肪， 促进喂养。我们已经证明了脂肪酸作为食欲促味剂的功能，并确定了第一个假定的 脂肪酸受体。这项建议旨在确定细胞和神经回路的原则， 是脂肪酸检测和加工的基础。此外，这些实验将调查是否 苍蝇能够区分不同的食欲促味剂，以及脂肪酸和糖是否 由共享或独立的神经回路处理。完成拟议的实验将 提供了对脂肪味道的详细了解，并告知可能被 跨门共享。

Project Summary Fat represents a calorically potent food source that yields approximately twice the amount of energy as carbohydrates or proteins per unit of mass. Dietary lipids are comprised of both triacylglycerides and fatty acids, and growing evidence suggests that it is the free fatty acids that are detected by the gustatory system. The highly palatable taste of fatty acids promotes food consumption, activates reward centers in mammals, and contributes to hedonic feeding that underlies many metabolism-related disorders. Despite a role in the etiology of metabolic diseases, little is known about how dietary fats are detected by the gustatory system to promote feeding. We have shown that fatty acids function as appetitive tastants and identified the first putative fatty acid receptor in the fly. This proposal seeks to identify the cellular and neural circuit principles that underlie the detection and processing of fatty acids. In addition, these experiments will investigate whether flies are capable of discriminating between different appetitive tastants, and whether fatty acids and sugars are processed by shared or independent neuronal circuits. The completion of the proposed experiments will provide a detailed understanding of fat taste, and inform fundamental principles of sensory coding that may be shared across phyla.