The goal of this project is to shed light on the nature and extent of temporal structure in the firing of basolateral amygdala (BLA) neurons during taste processing. To achieve this goal, the activity of small ensembles of AM neurons will be recorded as rats sample small doses of various tastes. Additionally, this project will determine how learning about a particular taste changes dynamic BLA responses to that taste. The learning paradigm employed in this project will be conditioned taste aversion (CTA) whereby pairing an unfamiliar taste with experimenter-induced nausea results in a strong aversion to the taste. CTA is expected to induce shifts is the response dynamics of BLA neurons. However, recent lesion studies suggest certain conditioning methods used for CTA circumvent amygdalar requirement for successful learning. Therefore CTA will be induced under two conditioning paradigms in order to determine if responses changes in BLA depend on the method employed. Both methods are expected to result in observable shifts in taste responses but differ in their response dynamics. Combined with previous lesion studies, the results from this experiment will offer insights into which changes seen in BLA are truly learning- related. Taste perception is directly linked with maintaining body homeostasis through an innate preference for nutritious foods and aversion toward poisons. When the system is disturbed, various disorders surrounding the ingestion of food can threaten the health of an individual. This project, therefore, has far-reaching implications ranging from CTAs seen in cancer patients to obesity and anorexia. ? ? ?
| Fontanini, Alfredo; Grossman, Stephen E; Figueroa, Joshua A et al. (2009) Distinct subtypes of basolateral amygdala taste neurons reflect palatability and reward. J Neurosci 29:2486-95 |
| Grossman, Stephen E; Fontanini, Alfredo; Wieskopf, Jeffrey S et al. (2008) Learning-related plasticity of temporal coding in simultaneously recorded amygdala-cortical ensembles. J Neurosci 28:2864-73 |
