Taste-responsive cells in the nucleus of the solitary tract (NST) either project to the parabrachial nuclei (PbN) of the pons, through which taste information is transmitted to forebrain gustatory nuclei, or give rise to axons terminating locally within the medulla. Numerous anatomical studies clearly demonstrate a substantial projection from the rostral NST, where most taste-responsive cells a...

Nutrient deprivation can lead to dramatic changes in feeding behavior, including acceptance of foods that are normally rejected. In flies, this behavioral shift depends in part on reciprocal sensitization and desensitization of sweet and bitter taste, respectively. However, the mechanisms for bitter taste modulation remain unclear. Here, we identify a set of octopaminergic/tyraminergic neurons,...

Changes in appetite in older adults may result in unhealthy weight change and negatively affect overall nutrition. Research examining gustatory processing in young adults has linked changes in patterns of the hemodynamic response of gustatory and motivation related brain regions to the physiological states of hunger and satiety. Whether the same brain regions are involved in taste processing in...

Rats showing disrupted taste aversion due to insular cortex (IC)-lesions received either IC-grafts with NGF, grafts without NGF, or NGF alone. An additional group served as lesioned controls. Only those animals that received IC-grafts with NGF recovered the ability to learn the conditioned taste aversion task, at 15 days post-graft. Choline acetyltransferase (ChAT) activity in the IC-grafts wit...

The activity of taste cells maintained in the intact hamster tongue was monitored in response to acid stimulation by recording action currents from taste receptor cells with an extracellular "macro" patch pipette: a glass pipette was pressed over the taste pore of fungiform papillae and perfused with citric acid, hydrochloric acid, or NaCl. Because this technique restricted stimulus application...

or transducin), in turn, causes an increase in phosphodi-esterase activity, resulting in decreased levels of cAMP, ultimately leading to an increase in Ca 2ϩ influx. In addi-for sugars involves the G protein–mediated activation of adenylyl cyclase and the production of cAMP, whereas Baton Rouge, Louisiana 70808 saccharin, an artificial sweetener, activates phospholi-pase C, causing the producti...

domain of experience (e.g. hayat tadını görmek “to taste/experience life”, (lit. “to see the taste of life”). Turkish verbs do not extend their meanings to all abstract domains Croatian prefixed verbs do: they do not share meanings with Croatian verbs pokušati “to try; to attempt”, okušati se, okušati se u, okušati se kao “to try (out) (as)”, nor can they be related to the abstract domain of te...

Running Title: Non-correlation of observables in calcium flux assay of sweet taste receptors ! #! !"#$%&'$! ! Validation of research methodology is critical in research design. Correlation between experimental observables must be established before undertaking extensive experiments or propose mechanisms. This article shows that, observables in the popular calcium flux strength assay used in the...

Feeding to satiety decreases the acceptability of the taste of food. In order to determine whether the responsiveness of gustatory neurons in the nucleus tractus solitarius (NTS) is influenced by hunger, neural activity in the NTS was analyzed while monkeys were fed to satiety. Gustatory neural activity to glucose, fruit juice, NaCl, HCl and quinine HCl was measured before, while and after the ...

The interaction between signaling pathways is a central question in the study of organogenesis. Using the developing murine tongue as a model, we uncovered unknown relationships between Sonic hedgehog (SHH) and retinoic acid (RA) signaling. Genetic loss of SHH signaling leads to enhanced RA activity subsequent to loss of SHH-dependent expression of Cyp26a1 and Cyp26c1. This causes a cell identi...