Bundles of microwires will be implanted in gustatory cortex and the amygdala (basolateral and central). Upon recovery, animals will be taught to press a bar for tastant reward while ensembles of amygdalocortical (A-C) single-units are recorded from all sites simultaneously (Exp. 1). Ensemble analysis of these data (e.g., coherence-relationships and pattern-recognition) will permit quantification of A-C interactions during taste coding and differences between the coding of hedonically positive (e.g., sucrose) and negative (e.g., quinine, nicotine) tastants. Animals will then be trained to distinguish between more and less desireable tastants, and will receive taste aversion conditioning (TAC) to the former stimulus (Exp. 2). A-C tastant responses before, during, and after TAC will be analyzed. This will reveal whether and when learning-related plasticity emerges in the A-C circuit, and how tastant-specific A-C interactions change as stimulus associations are learned. Finally, the procedure will be repeated in subjects that have received both electrode and cannula implants. The gustatory cortex, amygdala, or parabrachial pons will be inactivated at particular points of TAC (Exp. 3). It will be possible to test the behavioral significance of the observed A-C interactions and patterns of plasticity, by examining the relationship between learning, inactivation, and appearance of neural patterns.
| Tyler, Michael D; Best, Catherine T; Faber, Alice et al. (2014) Perceptual assimilation and discrimination of non-native vowel contrasts. Phonetica 71:4-21 |
| Irwin, Julia R; Brancazio, Lawrence (2014) Seeing to hear? Patterns of gaze to speaking faces in children with autism spectrum disorders. Front Psychol 5:397 |
| Mulak, Karen E; Best, Catherine T; Tyler, Michael D et al. (2013) Development of phonological constancy: 19-month-olds, but not 15-month-olds, identify words in a non-native regional accent. Child Dev 84:2064-78 |
| Whalen, D H; Giulivi, Sara; Nam, Hosung et al. (2012) Biomechanically preferred consonant-vowel combinations fail to appear in adult spoken corpora. Lang Speech 55:503-15 |
| Best, Catherine T; Tyler, Michael D; Gooding, Tiffany N et al. (2009) Development of phonological constancy: toddlers' perception of native- and Jamaican-accented words. Psychol Sci 20:539-42 |
