The neural basis of fatty acid taste

项目摘要 脂肪是一种热量强大的食物来源，其产生的能量大约是 单位质量的碳水化合物或蛋白质。饮食中的脂肪由三酰甘油酯和脂肪组成。 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。 高度可口的脂肪酸味道促进了食物的消费，激活了哺乳动物的奖励中心， 并有助于享乐性喂养，这是许多新陈代谢相关疾病的基础。尽管在电影中扮演了角色 代谢性疾病的病因，鲜为人知的是饮食脂肪是如何被味觉系统检测到的 促进进食。我们已经证明了脂肪酸作为食欲调味剂的作用，并确定了第一个假定 苍蝇体内的脂肪酸受体。这项提议试图确定细胞和神经电路原理， 是检测和处理脂肪酸的基础。此外，这些实验将调查是否 苍蝇能够区分不同的食欲，以及脂肪酸和糖类是否 由共享或独立的神经元电路处理。拟议的实验完成后， 提供对脂肪味道的详细理解，并告知感官编码的基本原则 在整个门类中共享。

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.