Research on salt appetite and emotion

2016 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 16K13108
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Exploratory Research
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Basic / Social brain science
• Research Institution: National Institute for Basic Biology
• Principal Investigator: HIYAMA Takeshi 基礎生物学研究所, 統合神経生物学研究部門, 助教 (90360338)
• Project Period (FY): 2016-04-01 – 2017-03-31
• Keywords: Naセンサー / 体液恒常性 / グリア細胞 / 神経回路

Outline of Final Research Achievements

In the subfornical organ (SFO), we here found distinct groups of excitatory neurons driving thirst and salt appetite, respectively. We refer to them as ‘water neurons’ and ‘salt neurons’, respectively. Salt neurons innervated the ventral part of the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (vBNST). BNST is a center of integration for limbic information and valence monitoring, and is important in psychiatric disease such as: the stress response, extended duration fear states and social behavior. We found that signals of Nax channels, sensing [Na+] in body fluids, controlled the activity of salt neurons through a group of GABAergic neurons; the GABAergic neurons were activated by lactate from glial cells expressing Nax channel. The natriorexigenic effects of Ang II thus appeared to be controlled based on the [Na+] in body fluids through the brain Na+-level sensor Nax.

Free Research Field

分子神経生物学