Taste and Oral Sensory Processing in the Brain

大脑中的味觉和口腔感觉处理

• 批准号: 8415556
• 负责人: CHRISTIAN H LEMON
• 金额: $ 28.68万
• 依托单位: UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2011
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2011-03-01 至 2016-02-28
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/8415556
• 关键词: Acids; Brain; Brain Stem; Burn injury; Cells; Chemicals; Code; Collection; Coronary heart disease; Data; Diabetes Mellitus; Electric Stimulation; Esthesia; Flavoring; Goals; Health; Heating; Human; Individual; Lead; Light; Link; Modality; Multivariate Analysis; Mus; Neurons; Nucleus solitarius; Nutritional status; Obesity; Oral; Perception; Phase; Pilot Projects; Population; Process; Psychophysics; Reaction Time; Research; Response Latencies; Role; Salts; Sensory; Sensory Process; Series; Shapes; Signal Transduction; Sodium; Sodium Chloride; Speed; Stem cells; Stimulus; Taste Perception; Temperature; Temperature Sense; Testing; Texture; Time; Water; base; experience; hedonic; multisensory; neuromechanism; oral sensory; parabrachial nucleus; relating to nervous system; response; sensory system; somatosensory; somesthesis; warm temperature

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Taste critically guides ingestive decisions that impact nutritional status and can lead to health problems in humans, such as obesity, diabetes and coronary heart disease. Thus, understanding mechanisms for taste is critical for defining how sensory factors impact human health and well being. Taste experience typically occurs in unison with other oral sensations, such as texture and temperature (somatic sensations). Taste perceptions can be modified by oral temperature, indicating the mechanisms of taste and thermosensation are linked. Taste neurons in the brain stem respond to oral temperature and, thus, are suited to process integrated taste and thermal input. The long-term goal of the proposed research is to define mechanisms of multimodal oral sensory processing in the brain stem. Using anesthetized mice, electrophysiological recordings will be made from individual brain stem neurons sensitive to both taste and oral thermal inputs. Specific Aim #1 will test the hypothesis that oral temperature influences gustatory neural codes. Oral responses to cooled and warmed taste stimuli will be recorded and analyzed to define how temperature impacts neural representations of gustatory quality and intensity information. Specific Aim #2 will test the hypothesis that taste neurons show similar sensitivities to tastes and temperatures of similar hedonic valence. These projects will elucidate the ability of taste neurons to signal oral somatic information and have implications for the oral sensory system to be integrated and not a collection of discrete modalities. Analyses of neural responses to concentration series of hedonically different taste stimuli and innocuous and noxious oral temperatures will evaluate this idea. Specific Aim #3 will test the hypothesis that upon initiating oral sensation thermal input to taste neurons is transmitted before taste. Timed sequencing may underlie interactions between temperature and taste - fast, early thermal stimulation could prime taste networks for modulation of subsequent taste input. Response time course data for individual neurons and neural ensembles will be analyzed to evaluate if taste and thermal interactions depend on the sequencing of sensory input. Overall, these projects will shed light on multisensory neural processes potentially involved in aspects of flavor integration and ingestive decisions.

描述（由申请人提供）：味觉对影响营养状况并可能导致人类健康问题（如肥胖、糖尿病和冠心病）的摄食决定具有重要指导作用。因此，理解味觉机制对于定义感官因素如何影响人类健康和福祉至关重要。味觉体验通常与其他口腔感觉一致，如质地和温度（躯体感觉）。味觉感知可以通过口腔温度来改变，这表明味觉和热感觉的机制是联系在一起的。脑干中的味觉神经元对口腔温度做出反应，因此适合处理味觉和热输入的综合过程。本研究的长期目标是明确脑干中多模态口腔感觉加工的机制。使用麻醉小鼠，将从对味觉和口腔热输入敏感的单个脑干神经元进行电生理记录。具体目标1将测试口腔温度影响味觉神经编码的假设。口腔对冷的和热的味觉刺激的反应将被记录和分析，以确定温度如何影响味觉质量和强度信息的神经表征。具体目标#2将测试味觉神经元对类似享乐价的味道和温度表现出相似敏感性的假设。这些项目将阐明味觉神经元发出口腔躯体信息的能力，并对口腔感觉系统的整合而不是离散模式的集合产生影响。通过对不同口味刺激和口腔温度的神经反应的分析，将对这一观点进行评价。具体目标#3将测试在启动口腔感觉时，味觉神经元的热输入在味觉之前传递的假设。时间序列可能是温度和味觉之间相互作用的基础——快速、早期的热刺激可以为随后的味觉输入调制启动味觉网络。将分析单个神经元和神经系统的响应时间过程数据，以评估味觉和热相互作用是否依赖于感觉输入的顺序。总的来说，这些项目将阐明可能涉及风味整合和摄入决策方面的多感官神经过程。