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2017 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

Understanding hypothalamic mechanisms in taste modulation with chemogenetic and optogenetic approaches

Research Project

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Project/Area Number 15H05624
Research Category

Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (A)

Allocation TypeSingle-year Grants
Research Field Food science
Research InstitutionNational Institute for Physiological Sciences (2017)
The University of Tokyo (2015-2016)

Principal Investigator

Nakajima Ken-ichiro  生理学研究所, 生体機能調節研究領域, 准教授 (70554492)

Research Collaborator NARUKAWA Masataka  
FU Ou  
Project Period (FY) 2015-04-01 – 2018-03-31
Keywords味覚 / 視床下部 / 光遺伝学 / 化学遺伝学
Outline of Final Research Achievements

Food is consisted of both nutrient factors and sensory factors such as taste and smell. Gustatory system plays a critical role in setting a standard to evaluate food quality. By contrast, it is known that this standard is not constant and can change depending on physiological status such as hunger. The mechanism behind this phenomenon, however, remains unclear.
To address this issue, here we manipulate hypothalamic orexigenic neurons to set artificial hunger condition in the mouse brain to analyze the mechanistic insight of hunger-induced taste modification. As a result, the activation of the orexigenic hypothalamic neurons lead to increase in sweet taste sensitivities and to decrease in aversive taste sensitivities, respectively. We revealed that novel role of hypothalamic neurons in taste modulation under hunger.

Free Research Field

味覚科学、神経科学、食品科学

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Published: 2019-03-29  

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