| Budget Amount *help |
¥5,200,000 (Direct Cost: ¥4,000,000、Indirect Cost: ¥1,200,000)
Fiscal Year 2014: ¥1,820,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,400,000、Indirect Cost: ¥420,000)
Fiscal Year 2013: ¥1,820,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,400,000、Indirect Cost: ¥420,000)
Fiscal Year 2012: ¥1,560,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,200,000、Indirect Cost: ¥360,000)
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| Outline of Final Research Achievements |
To reveal the ingestive behavior regulated by palatability and memory, we aimed to assess the brain mechanisms of memory establishment and palatability shift in conditioned taste aversion (CTA) in rats. Initially, we developed an experimental chamber for detecting the rat's approaches to a drinking spout, and counting their licks to the spout. We found that the rats show increased "conflict" (rats approach, but not lick, the spout) and decreased "burst" (high-frequency of licks) after conditioning. We defined that conflict indicates memory establishment, and burst indicates palatability shift. Based on these ideas, in behavioral pharmacology experiments, we examined the effects of temporal inactivation of the basolateral amygdala (BLA) on conflict and burst. We demonstrated that BLA inactivation significantly decreases conflict and increases burst. These results suggest that the BLA is a key brain region for both of memory establishment and palatability shift in CTA.
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