Taste and Somatosensory Processing

项目总结 味觉与不同动物的食物吸引力和取食偏好有关。味觉 偏好与影响营养状况和健康的人类消化障碍有关。然而，神经 味觉驱动进食偏好或回避的基础仍然知之甚少。 一个核心问题涉及大脑如何表达有关味觉享乐主义的信息。在啮齿动物中，神经 味觉信息到达脑干臂旁核。臂旁神经元是部分 多式联运。我们实验室的最新数据显示，味觉刺激臂旁区域的神经元 整合了来自全身传入的令人厌恶的感觉和伤害信息。我们的目标是 为了了解味觉信息是否由臂旁复合体中广泛整合的神经元处理 如果按照传统的定义，味觉神经元构成了一个亚群 这些细胞。这些问题对于理解的功能组织具有关键意义 味觉回路和味觉和其他感官的享乐值编码的神经基础。在目标1中，我们 将利用麻醉小鼠的体内神经生理学和光遗传电路图谱来系统地 臂旁神经元对口腔味觉刺激和伤害性反应的敏感性研究 脊椎传入神经对肢体的刺激。将对臂旁神经元进行评估 向杏仁核的投射，它与情绪有关。味觉之间的中枢相互作用 脊椎体感刺激也将被研究。此外，我们还将讨论抑制性输入如何来自 杏仁核影响臂旁味觉整合细胞的味觉和体感敏感性。最后， 这一目标的研究将利用光学标记技术对一种与厌恶有关的遗传型臂旁神经元进行标记 以及保护行为，以确定味觉整合臂旁神经元是否为这些细胞。目标2 将在味觉引导行为的测量期间使用该遗传细胞类别的可逆沉默来 确定这种臂旁神经元类型在先天味觉偏好中的作用。总体而言，这些研究 目的阐明味觉活性臂旁神经元新的神经回路和遗传学特征。 与它们在感觉配价加工中的功能和作用有关。由此产生的数据也将与口味有关 感觉可能与中枢神经系统中的疼痛相关信号相互作用并进行调制。

Project summary The sense of taste is associated with food appeal and feeding preferences in diverse animals. Taste preferences have ties to human ingestive disorders that impact nutritional status and health. Yet the neural basis by which taste sensations drive ingestive preference or avoidance remains only poorly understood. A central question concerns how the brain represents information about taste hedonics. In rodents, neural messages for taste arrive at the brain stem parabrachial nuclei. Parabrachial neurons are partly multimodal. Recent data from our lab show gustatory sensations stimulate neurons in parabrachial regions that integrate aversive sensory and nociceptive messages from afferents across the body. Our goal here is to understand if taste messages are processed by broadly integrative neurons in the parabrachial complex that communicate with the amygdala, and if traditionally defined taste neurons constitute a subpopulation of these cells. These questions have key implications for understanding the functional organization of gustatory circuits and the neural basis of hedonic value coding for taste and other senses. In Aim #1, we will use in vivo neurophysiology and optogenetic circuit mapping in anesthetized mice to systematically study the sensitivity of parabrachial neurons to gustatory stimulation of the oral cavity and nociceptive stimulation of body extremities supplied by spinal afferents. Parabrachial neurons will be evaluated for projections to the amygdala, which is associated with emotional affect. Central interactions between taste and spinal somatosensory stimuli will also be studied. Moreover, we will address how inhibitory input from the amygdala influences taste and somatosensory sensitivity in parabrachial taste-integrative cells. Finally, studies in this Aim will use optical tagging of a genetic type of parabrachial neuron involved with aversive and protective behaviors to determine if gustatory-integrative parabrachial neurons are these cells. Aim #2 will use reversible silencing of this genetic cell class during measurement of taste-guided behaviors to determine the role of this parabrachial neuron type in innate gustatory preferences. Overall, these studies aim to elucidate novel neural circuit and genetic features of gustatory-active parabrachial neurons that pertain to their function and role in sensory valence processing. Resulting data will also bear on how taste sensations may interact with and modulate pain-related signals in the CNS.