The Neural Organization of Taste Neophobia

项目摘要 新恐惧症被定义为对新的刺激或情况的恐惧反应。当动物遇到小说 他们吃东西，吃的时候要小心。对人类来说，这种行为对健康有着重大的影响。 后果食物新恐惧症在儿童中尤其普遍，对某些类型的食物的排斥 对儿童的急性健康造成严重后果。此外，童年时期的食物恐惧症长期存在- 对饮食选择的持久不利影响与饮食失调、不良健康结果和疾病有关。 在啮齿类动物中，味觉新恐惧症是一种重要的行为反应，它确保了最小的毒性威胁， 不熟悉的食物，包括那些天生的食欲。当面对一种新奇的食物或口味时，动物 在最初的遭遇中消耗相对较少的量。如果这种消耗没有产生不利影响， 结果，形成了对“安全”味道的记忆，动物将更容易增加它们的摄入量， 在随后的测试阶段，一个过程被称为新恐惧症的衰减。虽然病变研究已经开始 为了确定涉及味觉新恐惧症及其衰减的大脑区域，人们对味觉新恐惧症的研究相对较少。 这些行为的潜在回路或神经关联。例如，没有人试图 探索Neophobia和衰减如何影响清醒，行为动物在关键区域的神经反应 中枢味觉通路，包括味觉皮层、味觉丘脑和基底核。整体 本项目的目标是通过调查有关新奇和 味觉的熟悉程度被编码在这些回路中。我们的中心假设是，新恐惧症是由 增强味觉皮层和丘脑的反应，其衰减由胆碱能活性介导 来自基底前脑的输入我们将使用钙成像确定胆碱能和味觉细胞类型相结合 在新生恐惧症和衰减期间，在清醒的动物中进行化学发生学操作，以测试这些假设。 这些实验的发现将是重要的，因为它们将是第一个探索神经元活动的实验。 在新恐惧症和衰减期间的中央味觉区域。此外，我们的发现将从根本上推动我们的 了解味觉新恐惧症如何在中枢味觉回路中编码，以及胆碱能输入在其中的作用。 行为这些发现不仅对增加我们对这种重要的味觉形式的理解很重要， 学习，而且还在进一步了解我们的基本机制，潜在的新奇处理内 感觉区域

Project Summary Neophobia is defined as a fearful reaction to novel stimuli or situations. When an animal encounters a novel food, they approach and consume it with cautiousness. For humans, this behavior has significant health consequences. Food Neophobia is especially prevalent in children, and the rejection of certain types of foods has serious consequences for the acute health of the child. Moreover, food Neophobia in childhood has long- lasting adverse effects on dietary choices associated with eating disorders, poor health outcomes, and disease. In rodents, taste Neophobia is an important behavioral reaction that ensures a minimized threat of toxicity in unfamiliar foods, including those that are inherently appetitive. When faced with a novel food or taste, animals consume a relatively small amount during the initial encounter. If this consumption yields no adverse consequences, a memory for a “safe” taste is formed, and animals will more readily increase their intake in subsequent test sessions, a process is known as attenuation of Neophobia. While lesions studies have begun to identify the brain regions involved in taste Neophobia and its attenuation, relatively little is known about the underlying circuits or the neural correlates of these behaviors. For example, there have been no attempts at exploring how Neophobia and attenuation impact neuronal responses in awake, behaving animals in key areas of the central taste pathway, including the gustatory cortex, gustatory thalamus, and nucleus basalis. The overall goal of this project is to understand this process by investigating how information regarding the novelty and familiarity of tastes are encoded within these circuits. Our central hypothesis is that Neophobia is driven by enhanced responses in both gustatory cortex and thalamus, and its attenuation is mediated by cholinergic activity from basal forebrain inputs. We will use calcium imaging of defined cholinergic and gustatory cell types combined with chemogenetic manipulation in awake animals during Neophobia and attenuation to test these hypotheses. The findings of these experiments will be significant in that they will be the first to explore neuronal activity in central taste regions during Neophobia and attenuation. Further, our findings will fundamentally advance our knowledge of how taste Neophobia is encoded in central taste circuits and the role of cholinergic input in this behavior. These findings will be important not only in increasing our understanding of this important form of taste learning but also in furthering our understanding of the basic mechanisms underlying novelty processing within sensory regions.