NEURONAL SUBPOPULATIONS IN GUSTATORY NST

描述(改编自申请者的摘要)：相关的口腔感觉 食物摄入量在短期内影响饮食选择(即， 接受或拒绝可食用材料)和长期(即， 营养状况影响接受标准)。他们还扮演着一个重要的角色 在启动胃肠道系统的“头痛期”反应中的作用， 从而调节消化，从而调节代谢和营养， 食物摄入的后果。因此，嗅觉功能支持 对健康有根本性的影响。感官信息的到来 位于孤束核吻部的口腔 (RNST)是这些过程的第一步。中的后续步骤 对RNST内感觉输入的处理知之甚少。这个 我研究的长期目标是了解化学感觉和 躯体感觉信息在RNST的神经回路中进行处理 分布到大脑中，负责味觉感知，食物调节， 和胃肠调节。无法将独特的模式与 对感官刺激的反应，具有明显的和可识别的 RNST中的神经元群体在这个问题上的进展有限 味觉系统。这项提案的目的是确定不同的 RNST神经元的亚群基于：1)它们的细胞反应 电刺激口感神经的激活及2)它们 口感释放神经递质受体亚型的表达 神经(即谷氨酸)。Fos蛋白的免疫组织化学(IHC) 直接早期基因c-Fos的产物将被用于鉴定种群 电刺激个体后激活的RNST神经元的变化 舌头的味觉神经。功能和结构特点 由这组神经元共享，或者用来将它们分离成不同的 类，将通过结合逆行跟踪来识别，IHC用于 神经递质表达，和/或形态计量学，与IHC的Fos。IHC将 也可以用来确定谷氨酸受体的哪些亚基在 RNST神经元的种群以及这些表达神经的种群 刺激诱发的Fos显示独特的识别谷氨酸受体 亚基配置文件。这些数据将提供一种新的识别手段 RNST群体对传入输入的反应性差异 与神经解剖学和药理学相兼容的神经元 分析突触回路的方法。这些研究的结果将有助于 通过提供一种识别手段来分析味觉加工 可以可视化的功能不同的RNST神经元群 在分析突触回路的解剖学中，并在功能上确定了 药理学研究。

DESCRIPTION (adapted from applicant's abstract): Oral sensations associated with food intake influence diet selection in both the short term (i.e., accepting or rejecting ingestible material) and the long term (i.e., nutritional status influences acceptance criteria). They also play an important role in initiating "cephalic phase" responses of the gastrointestinal system, thus regulating the digestive, and therefore the metabolic and nutritive, consequences of food intake.Thus, orosensory function supports processes which have a fundamental impact on health. The arrival of sensory information from the oral cavity at the rostral division of the nucleus of the solitary tract (rNST) is an initial step in these processes. The subsequent steps in processing the sensory input within the rNST are poorly understood. The long-term goal of my research is to understand how chemosensory and somatosensory information is processed within the neural circuits of the rNST and distributed into brain pathways for taste perception, feeding regulation, and gastrointestinal modulation. The inability to associate unique patterns of responsiveness to sensory stimulation, with distinct and identifiable populations of neurons in the rNST has limited progress on this problem in the gustatory system. The aims of this proposal are to identify distinct subpopulations of rNST neurons on the basis of: 1) their cellular responses to activation by electrical stimulation of orosensory nerves and 2) their expression of receptor subtypes for the neurotransmitter released by orosensory nerves (i.e., glutamate). Immunohistochemistry (IHC) for Fos, the protein product of the immediate early gene c-Fos, will be used to identify populations of activated rNST neurons following electrical stimulation of individual gustatory nerves from the tongue. Functional and structural characteristics shared by this group of neurons, or which serve to segregate them into distinct classes, will be identified by combining retrograde tracing, IHC for neurotransmitter expression, and/or morphometrics, with IHC for Fos. IHC will also be used to determine which glutamate receptor subunits are expressed in populations of rNST neurons and if those populations expressing nerve stimulation-evoked Fos demonstrate uniquely identifying glutamate receptor subunit profiles. These data will provide a new means of identifying differences in responsiveness to afferent input between populations of rNST neurons that will be compatible with neuroanatomical and pharmacological methods for analyzing synaptic circuits. The results of these studies will aid analysis of gustatory processing by providing a means of identifying functionally distinct populations of rNST neurons which can be visualized anatomically in analyses of synaptic circuits, and identified functionally in pharmacological studies.