The Psychophysics of Salt Taste Transduction Pathways

生物体摄取适量的盐以适应其需要，这对维持适当的健康和体液平衡是至关重要的。这种摄入在很大程度上是由味觉线索引导的。如果没有这些提示，人类和其他动物可能会摄入过多或过少的盐，从而导致健康问题。越来越多的证据表明，盐味转导涉及两条途径。最近的进展已经开始揭示这两种转导途径对味觉引导行为的相对贡献，如钠识别（在钠耗尽和钠充满的条件下），以及钠和钾的检测和辨别。然而，重大问题依然存在。特别是，我们不知道这些途径是如何影响NaCl和其他氯化物盐的味道的。本实验将使用心理物理学方法来测试盐刺激的辨别、识别和概括，并结合神经横断、钠消耗和上皮钠通道阻断剂等生理操作，以确定这些转导途径对味觉引导行为的贡献。这个项目将扩展我们目前关于受体水平上的相互作用如何导致味觉感知并最终影响盐摄入量的知识。

It is critical for the maintenance of proper health and fluid balance that an organism ingests an amount of salt appropriate to its needs. This ingestion is largely guided by taste cues. Without these cues, humans and other animals might ingest too much or too little salt which could result in health problems. There is growing evidence that salt taste transduction involves two pathways. Recent advances have begun to reveal the relative contributions of these two transduction pathways to taste-guided behaviors such as sodium recognition (under both sodium-depleted and sodium replete conditions), and also sodium and potassium detection and discrimination. However, significant questions remain. In particular, we do not know how these pathways contribute to the taste qualities of NaCl and other chloride salts. The proposed experiments will use psychophysical methods to test the discrimination, recognition and generalization of salt stimuli coupled with physiological manipulations such as nerve transections, sodium depletion, and epithelial sodium channel blocker administration to determine the contributions of these transduction pathways to taste-guided behavior. This project will extend our current knowledge of how interactions at the receptor level lead to taste perceptions and ultimately affect salt intake.