科學家揭示哺乳動物大腦感知味覺的通路
作者:
小柯機器人發布時間:2021/1/8 16:49:50
美國哥倫比亞大學Charles S. Zuker團隊在研究中取得進展。他們研究揭示了調控哺乳動物大腦對味覺感受的通路。2021年1月7日,國際學術期刊《細胞》發表了這一成果。
研究人員確定並表徵了腦幹中從舌頭到皮層傳遞甜味和苦味信號的神經元。隨後,研究人員探究了大腦如何調節腦電路以控制味覺行為。研究人員發現苦味是誘發甜味抑制的基礎,並發現味覺皮層和杏仁核對腦幹中傳入的苦味和甜味信號產生了強烈的正反饋和負反饋。
最後,研究表明阻止該反饋會顯著改變對味覺相關刺激的反應。這些結果說明了如何通過自上而下的調控來精確調節電路連接,並揭示了動物必不可少行為反應的神經基礎。
據介紹,編碼先天反應的電迴路是哺乳動物大腦的基本特徵。甜味和苦味引起了相反的行為。甜食可增加食慾,並消耗能量豐富的食物;而苦味則可防止有毒化學物質的攝入。
附:英文原文
Title: Top-Down Control of Sweet and Bitter Taste in the Mammalian Brain
Author: Hao Jin, Z. Hershel Fishman, Mingyu Ye, Li Wang, Charles S. Zuker
Issue&Volume: 2021/01/07
Abstract: Hardwired circuits encoding innate responses have emerged as an essential featureof the mammalian brain. Sweet and bitter evoke opposing predetermined behaviors. Sweetdrives appetitive responses and consumption of energy-rich food sources, whereas bitterprevents ingestion of toxic chemicals. Here we identified and characterized the neuronsin the brainstem that transmit sweet and bitter signals from the tongue to the cortex.Next we examined how the brain modulates this hardwired circuit to control taste behaviors.We dissect the basis for bitter-evoked suppression of sweet taste and show that thetaste cortex and amygdala exert strong positive and negative feedback onto incomingbitter and sweet signals in the brainstem. Finally we demonstrate that blocking thefeedback markedly alters responses to ethologically relevant taste stimuli. Theseresults illustrate how hardwired circuits can be finely regulated by top-down controland reveal the neural basis of an indispensable behavioral response for all animals.
DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2020.12.014
Source: https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(20)31684-6
Cell:《細胞》,創刊於1974年。隸屬於細胞出版社,最新IF:36.216