Understanding the contribution of the mediodorsal thalamus in gustatory processing

了解内侧丘脑在味觉处理中的贡献

• 批准号: 10361620
• 负责人: Roberto Vincis
• 金额: $ 33.93万
• 依托单位: FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2022-01-13 至 2026-12-31
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10361620
• 关键词: Affective; Amygdaloid structure; Anatomy; Animals; Area; Attention; Attenuated; Auditory; Behavior; Behavior assessment; Behavioral; Behavioral Paradigm; Biological Models; Brain; Brain region; Cell Nucleus; Citric Acid; Cognitive; Communication; Complex; Cues; Data; Eating; Electrophysiology (science); Feeding behaviors; Food; Frequencies; Goals; Incentives; Investigation; Knowledge; Lead; Learning; Measures; Medial Dorsal Nucleus; Modification; Mus; Negative Valence; Neurons; Outcome; Pathway interactions; Positive Valence; Process; Property; Quinine; Reporting; Research; Rewards; Rodent; Role; Sampling; Sensory; Shapes; Signal Transduction; Sodium Chloride; Specificity; Stimulus; Sucrose; System; Taste Perception; Testing; Thalamic structure; Time; Training; Water; Work; base; behavioral response; classical conditioning; design; experience; experimental study; hedonic; high reward; mind control; multisensory; relating to nervous system; response; sensory input; taste stimuli; virtual

PROJECT SUMMARY Recent studies on the gustatory portion of the insular cortex (gustatory cortex, GC) have demonstrated its role in integrating sensory, affective, and cognitive signals associated with the experience of food. Indeed, GC neurons do not just encode the chemosensory features of gustatory stimuli but can also process hedonic value (i.e. liking or disliking) and information on multisensory stimuli anticipating taste. Understanding how GC performs the complex integration of chemosensory, affective, and anticipatory information is one of the major efforts in the field. It is generally believed that GC achieves this level of integration by processing inputs from sensory and limbic areas including the gustatory thalamus (VPMpc), the basolateral amygdala (BLA), and the mediodorsal thalamic nuclei (MD). While the functions of VPMpc and BLA have been studied, very little is known regarding the contribution of MD in taste. Using mice as a model system, the proposed research will rely on multiple experimental approaches to test the general hypothesis that the MD conveys taste quality, reward-related, and associative signals that contribute to processes in the GC that can impact taste-related behaviors. Specific Aim 1 will use electrophysiological recordings and behavioral training to characterize the taste and taste-predicting cues response profile in the MD. Specific Aim 2 will combine neural recordings, behavioral training and chemogenetic manipulation to unveil the effect of MD inputs on GC response profiles pertaining to taste quality and taste-predicting anticipatory cues. Finally, the experiment in Specific Aim 3 will rely on a behavioral task and chemogenetic manipulation to determine the role of the MD-GC connection in helping to establish incentive values of neutral auditory cues in the acquisition of cue-taste associations. Altogether, the results obtained from these experiments will provide a comprehensive system-level investigation on the role of MD in taste processing. If successful, this work will lead the way for the MD thalamus as a potential crucial brain region involved in the integration and communication of behaviorally relevant chemosensory information.

项目总结 最近对岛叶皮质的味觉部分(味觉皮质，GC)的研究证实了它的作用 在整合与食物体验相关的感觉、情感和认知信号方面。事实上，GC 神经元不仅编码味觉刺激的化学感觉特征，而且还能处理享乐性价值 (即喜欢或不喜欢)和关于预期味道的多感官刺激的信息。了解GC如何 进行化学感觉、情感和预期信息的复杂整合是主要的信息之一 在实地的努力。 一般认为，GC通过处理来自感觉和边缘的输入来实现这种程度的整合 区域包括味觉丘脑(VPMPC)、杏仁基底外侧核(BLA)和丘脑背内侧 核团(MD)。虽然VPMPC和BLA的功能已经被研究，但关于VPMPC和BLA的功能还知之甚少 MD在味觉上的贡献。以小鼠为模型系统，拟议的研究将依赖于多个 用实验方法检验MD传达味道质量、与奖励相关的一般假设 参与GC中可能影响味觉相关行为的过程的关联信号。特定目标 1将使用电生理记录和行为训练来表征口味和味觉预测 MD中的提示响应配置文件。特定目标2将结合神经记录、行为训练和 化学遗传学操作揭示MD输入对与味道质量有关的GC响应图谱的影响 以及味觉预测的预期线索。最后，在特定目标3中的实验将依赖于行为任务和 化学遗传学操作以确定MD-GC连接在帮助建立激励机制中的作用 中性听觉线索在线索-味觉联想习得中的价值。 总之，从这些实验中获得的结果将提供一个全面的系统级别 MD在味觉加工中的作用研究。如果成功，这项工作将引领MD丘脑的发展 作为一个潜在的关键大脑区域，参与行为相关的整合和交流 化学感官信息。