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.

项目摘要 最近对岛叶皮层味觉部分（gustatoriccortex，GC）的研究已经证明了它的作用 整合与食物体验相关的感官、情感和认知信号。事实上，GC 神经元不仅编码味觉刺激的化学感觉特征，而且还能处理享乐价值 (i.e.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 执行化学感觉，情感和预期信息的复杂整合是主要的 外地的努力。 一般认为，GC通过处理来自感觉和边缘系统的输入来实现这种整合水平 包括味觉丘脑（VPMpc）、基底外侧杏仁核（BLA）和内侧背丘脑在内的区域 核（MD）。虽然已经研究了VPMpc和BLA的功能，但关于VPMpc和BLA的功能知之甚少。 MD对味觉的贡献使用小鼠作为模型系统，拟议的研究将依赖于多种 实验方法来测试的一般假设，即MD传达口味质量，奖励相关， 关联信号，有助于GC中的过程，可以影响味觉相关行为。具体目标 1将使用电生理记录和行为训练来表征味觉和味觉预测 在MD中的提示响应配置文件。具体目标2将结合联合收割机神经记录，行为训练， 揭示MD输入对与味道质量有关的GC响应谱的影响的化学遗传学操作 和味觉预测预期线索。最后，具体目标3中的实验将依赖于行为任务， 化学遗传学操作，以确定MD-GC连接在帮助建立激励中的作用 中性听觉线索在线索-味觉关联习得中的价值。 总之，从这些实验中获得的结果将提供一个全面的系统级 MD在味觉加工中的作用。如果成功的话，这项工作将为MD丘脑的研究开辟道路。 作为一个潜在的关键大脑区域，参与整合和沟通行为相关的 化学感受信息