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Physicochemical studies of taste reception. III. Interpretation of the water response in taste reception.

The model membrane composed of a Millipore filter paper and the total lipids from bovine tongue epithelium or phosphatidylcholine from egg yolk simulated well the water response of a living taste cell, The water response observed with the model membrane adapted to various salt solutions was interpreted in terms of changes in electric potential at the membrane-solution interface, i.e. the water response was attributed to the e.m.f. change produced by diffusion of the electrolytes dissolved in (or adsorbed on) the membrane surface into the bulk solution. The water response of the frog tongue was also investigated by measuring the neural response of the glossopharyngeal nerve. The results obtained were consistent with the mechanism proposed in the present paper. The response of the frog to Ca2+ was examined under the condition where the water response was suppressed, and it was concluded that the water response of the frog is different from the response to Ca2+.

Animals

Morphological evidence of innervation of taste buds of rat fungiform papillae after acute X-ray irradiation.

An acute dose of 2000 Roentgens (R) of x-ray was delivered to the head and neck area of Sprague-Dawley rats. Groups of rats were sacrificed at 0, 3, 7, 14, 21 and 30 days after x-ray irradiation. Both general nerve staining and localization of cholinergic nerves by special staining of fungiform papillae were performed. No apparent change in number and distribution of nerve fibres were observed light microscopically within the fungiform papillae containing normal, degenerating and regenerating taste buds. Similarly, cholinesterase activity was present in all control and experimental groups. These preliminary findings do not support the theory that taste bud degeneration is due to x-ray irradiation causing damage to related nerve fibres. A theoretical model of taste bud degeneration after acute x-ray irradiation is proposed.

Animals

[The formation of taste aversion and preference under conditions of protein synthesis inhibition in rats].

The study is devoted to the role of protein synthesis in formation of chemosensory memory in rats. Two experimental models of taste memorizing were used, i.e., conditioned taste aversion (CTA) caused by association of succharin intake with being poisoned by lithium chloride, and increased taste preference (ITP) caused by the influence of primary consumption of succharin solution on its repeated intake. It was found out that CTA was not formed under conditions both of 43% inhibition of brain protein synthesis by cycloheximide and of 59% its inhibition by 8-azaguanine. Cycloheximide but not 8-azaguanine prevented formation of ITP. A proposal was made about participation of different spectra of protein and peptide molecules in formation of taste aversion and preference. The effect of protein synthesis inhibitors on the process of taste memory retrieval was not found.

Animals

Drugs and taste aversion.

The literature on the effects of drugs on the acquisition and the magnitude of taste aversion is reviewed and discussed. Then, the results of a series of experiments on the effects of phenobarbital and related drugs on taste aversion are reported. A standard taste aversion model was used in all experiments; test drugs were injected prior to drinking in a one bottle situation on the first test day following the taste aversion treatment. Phenobarbital in doses ranging from 20 to 80 mg/kg significantly attenuated taste aversion induced by lithium chloride (LiCl) and x-radiation, the maximal effect occurred with the 60 mg/kg dose. The attenuating effect was found to be dependent upon the magnitude of the aversion to the sapid solution. Phenobarbital completely abolished aversion produced by 0.375 mEq LiCl while the attenuation effect decreased linearly with higher doses of LiCl. Results also indicate that phenobarbital's attenuating effect cannot be solely attributed to its dipsogenic characteristic or to its state dependent learning effect. Attenuation of LiCl aversion to a saccharin solution was also observed following single doses of amobarbital, 30 mg/kg, pentobarbital, 15 mg/kg, and chloropromazine, 0.75 mg/kg. Taste aversion was not affected by other doses of those drugs or by hexobarbital, barbital, and chlordiazepoxide. Phenobarbital's attenuating effect on taste aversion is discussed in relation to other known behavioral and neurophysiological effects of the drug.

Animals

Amphibians provide new insights into taste-bud development.

Until recently, the predominant model of taste-bud development was one of neural induction: ingrowing sensory fibers were thought to induce taste-bud differentiation late in embryonic development. Recent experimental studies, however, show that the development of taste buds is independent of their innervation. In amphibian embryos, the ability to generate taste buds is an intrinsic feature of the oropharyngeal epithelium long before the region becomes innervated. These studies indicate that patterning of the oropharyngeal epithelium occurs during gastrulation, and suggest that taste buds or their progenitors play the dominant role in the development of their own innervation.

Amphibians

Taste reactivity responses in rats: influence of sex and the estrous cycle.

Gonadal hormones (e.g., estradiol) may regulate feeding by producing a shift in the taste or palatability of food items. This study examined the impact of endogenous gonadal hormones on palatability by investigating sex differences in taste responsivity, as well as the effect of the estrous cycle on taste responsivity, in a rodent model. In the taste reactivity test, male and female Long-Evans rats received a brief (1 min) intraoral infusion of one of three tastants: sucrose (0.3 M), quinine (0.0003 M), and a sucrose-quinine mixture (0.3 M sucrose and 0.0003 M quinine). Statistical analyses indicated that female rats tested during diestrus or proestrus produced significantly more ingestive responses than did male rats and fewer aversive responses than did both male rats and female rats tested during estrus or metestrus (P < 0.05). These results indicate a sex difference in taste responsivity in the rat that is modulated by the reproductive status of female rats. This finding implies a role of gonadal hormones in the regulation of taste responsivity in the rat.

Animals

A review of sweet taste potentiation brought about by divalent oxygen and sulfur incorporation.

The plethora of high-potency sweetener research has allowed the construction of important structure-taste relationships. In light of new structure-taste relationships, it is instructive to review sweet taste potentiation brought about by divalent oxygen and sulfur incorporation. The taste of sulfur-containing organic compounds was reviewed in Japanese by Yasuo Ariyoshi in 1977. Several new representative examples of sweet taste potentiation and taste dichotomy (sweet and bitter) found within similar classes of oxygen- and sulfur-containing organic compound: amides, dipeptides, ureas, sulfamates, sulfonamides, oximes, sugars, dihydroisocoumarins, and others are reviewed. Special attention is given to the thioethers and thioureas in sulfamates, dipeptides, aryl ureas, and hybrid dipeptide ureas. The most notable contributions have arisen from the work of Nofre and Tinti at Université Claude Bernard in Lyons, France. A common trend emerges with certain sweeteners when a carbon atom is strategically replaced by sulfur or oxygen atoms. The net result is an increase in the sweetness two- to tenfold. With saccharins, the usual bitter, metallic taste is removed. Sweet taste receptor models that have been published are mainly based on the original Shallenberger and Acree model of the glucophores AH-B with contributions from Kier (AH-B-X). AH is a proton donor group, B is a proton acceptor group, and X is some hydrophobic group. All of the models have overlooked the contributions of divalent sulfur (often in place of oxygen) in bringing about sweetness potentiation. There is no precedence for localizing the energy-minimized structures of sulfur-containing sweeteners in a binding mode that includes sulfur. These sulfur potentiation loci are analyzed and illustrated in a computer-generated sweetener model to show the specific region in which sulfur is being "recognized" as a potentiating feature.

Humans

Modelling the evolution of heterogeneity in residential mobility.

Migration probabilities are known to vary over the population (heterogeneity) and over time (nonstationarity). It is shown that if the heterogeneity is represented by an SB mixing distribution and the nonstationarity by a set of arbitrary logistic scaling functions, then not only may all sources of heterogeneity, including tastes, be modelled, but heterogeneity at different points in time may be readily compared. The model is calibrated using data previously published by Clark et al. (1977, 1979) for a sample of 1,176 older renters and is found to fit well. The changing heterogeneity over the ten-year period of observation is represented graphically.

Demography

The construction and prediction of psychophysical power functions for the sweetness of equiratio sugar mixtures.

Psychophysical taste mixture models describe the relationship between the perceived intensities of the unmixed components and the intensity of the mixture. Three of these models are discussed. As all of these appear either to be internally inconsistent or lack sufficient generality, a simple alternative model has been developed especially for the prediction of the intensity of equiratio mixtures. This model was experimentally tested with glucose-fructose mixtures. On the basis of the data obtained it is shown that a psychophysical equiratio mixture function can be constructed in the same way as a power function for a single compound. The results show that the new mixture model can predict the functions for equiratio mixtures with great precision. Implications for mixture interaction phenomena are discussed.

Adult

The taste of ethanol in a primate model: I. Chorda tympani nerve response in Macaca mulatta.

The chorda tympani nerve (CT) mediates taste from the anterior part of the tongue. Here we studied the effects of ethanol on the tongue in recordings from both the whole CT nerve and individual taste fibers of the rhesus monkey, M. mulatta. The response to ethanol consisted of a phasic and a tonic part. At the lowest concentration tested (0.3 M) ethanol gave a response in some animals and at 0.7 M in all animals. A sigmoidal function described best the relationship between nerve response and ethanol concentrations. Hierarchial cluster analysis with 26 nonalcoholic sweet, sour, salty, and bitter stimuli had earlier identified four types of taste fibers each responding predominantly to stimuli within one of the four human taste qualities. Here were found that ethanol stimulated all sweet-best fibers and at high concentration some salt-best fibers, but never any acid-best and bitter-best fibers. This may explain the sweet taste attributed to low ethanol concentration by humans. Further, in mixtures it suppressed the responses in acid-best and bitter-best taste fibers. This may partly explain the effects of ethanol on sour and bitter taste in alcoholic beverages.

Animals

Concept of neuron types in gustation in the rat.

1. In taste neurophysiology, from Pfaffmann's (49, 50) pioneering work until the present, the possibility of types of neurons corresponding in some sense with the "primary" taste qualities of Henning (33) has been entertained: recently types of gustatory neurons in peripheral nerves have been established according to which of the four classical stimuli is the "best stimulus." However, considerable variation occurs in the response profiles within neurons classified as belonging to the same type. The purpose of this research is to determine, using mathematical techniques where appropriate, if the within-type variation is spurious or, instead, indicates the absence of a typology of taste neurons. The data used were counts of the spike discharges of 50 individual taste neurons in the nucleus of the solitary tract of the rat, evoked by 32 diverse chemical stimuli. 2. Using as input the matrix of Pearson r correlation coefficients calculated for the responses of all pairings of neurons to all stimuli, multidimensional scaling analysis revealed a two-dimensional space in which no clear groupings of neurons occurred. 3. In a hierarchical cluster analysis of the neuron response profile similarities, no evidence of grouping was found, suggesting a more-or-less continuous variation among neurons. 4. When the organization of the 32 stimuli utilized was studied by the same techniques, no clear evidence for stimulus types was found, although the possibility of two stimulus types--"sweet" and "nonsweet"--was raised. 5. Construction of a joint neuron-stimulus space supported a spatial model of taste neuron-stimulus interaction, while analysis of the number and pattern of high correlations among neurons--even after allowance for attenuation due to measurement error--failed to support the notion of types of taste neurons with identical response profiles. 6. Aspects of the logical role of types of neurons in gustatory coding were discussed, and the results and methods of the present investigation were related to classification schemes for neurons in general. Suggestions for a formal taxonomy of neurons were given. 7. It should be emphasized that the present study and conclusions are of second-order, CNS neurons, whereas the studies advocating the presence of neurons types were of peripheral neurons. Taken together, the implication to be drawn from these studies is that if neural types do exist in peripheral taste nerves, the typology is lost at the first synapse and is thus unavailable to the CNS for coding purposes, at least in the rat.

Animals

Genetic and pathological taste variation: what can we learn from animal models and human disease?

The study of patients with taste disorders (i.e. 'experiments of nature') suggests that the old tongue maps (e.g. sweet on the tip, bitter on the back) that often appear in textbooks are wrong. If they were correct, severing the taste nerves that innervate the front of the tongue would result in a loss of the ability to taste sweet, etc. This does not occur. Severing these nerves has little effect on everyday taste experience because taste nerves inhibit one another. Damaging one nerve abolishes its ability to inhibit others and the release-of-inhibition compensates for the damage. There is sometimes a clinical cost for this redundancy; release-of-inhibition can produce taste phantoms. Genetic variation in taste ability occurs across and within species. For example, about 25% of humans are relatively unresponsive to a variety of sweet and bitter compounds (non-tasters) while another 25% are unusually responsive (supertasters). Supertasters have about four times as many taste buds as non-tasters and have smaller and more densely packed fungiform papillae. Since there are pain fibres associated with taste buds, supertasters are unusually responsive to the oral burn of spices.

Animals

Supported work for ex-addicts: an exploration of endogenous tastes.

The expected impact of Supported Work on former drug addicts' employment, crime, and drug use are derived from two models: the human capital model and a model of endogenous tastes. Empirically, Supported Work is found to increase the earnings of at least some ex-addicts, primarily due to increases in hours worked rather than wage rates. The program also reduced ex-addicts' crime, producing the greatest impact on the robbery and drug-related crimes and changing relationship between crime and employment. The program did not affect ex-addicts' recidivism to drugs. The pattern effects only partially supports the human capital model, and there is also some support for the model of endogenous tastes.

Employment

Sapid savvy in sucklings: the effect of quinine hydrochloride on intraoral negative pressure and intake by 11-13-day-old rat pups.

Three experiments describe the consummatory behavior of 11-13-day-old rat pups during and following experience with a model aversive taste, quinine hydrochloride. Pups were observed while away from the dam and while suckling. Results show that pups actively reject quinine adulterated solutions in both situations. They do so by spitting the solution from the mouth when away from the nipple and by leaving the nipple and/or decreasing their sucking effort when with the dam.

Animals

Distribution of tachykinin- and opioid-expressing neurons in the hamster solitary nucleus: an immuno- and in situ hybridization histochemical study.

In several sensory systems, tachykinin- and opioid-expressing neurons functionally interact and influence the processing of afferent information. To determine whether a similar relationship exists for the processing of general and special (gustatory) visceral afferent information, the present study mapped the distributions of these two neuronal phenotypes within the nucleus of the solitary tract (NST) of the hamster by employing a combination of immuno- and in situ hybridization histochemistry (ISHH). The hamster was chosen because it is frequently used as a model in taste studies, yet there is a relative dearth of data about peptide expression or the classical neurotransmitters in the brainstem of this animal. The immunohistochemical analyses employed 2 highly selective antisera directed towards the prototypical tachykinin and opioid peptides, i.e. substance P (SP) and methionine enkephalin (ENK), respectively. Intense staining of fibers and preterminal/terminal puncta was concentrated in the rostral pole or gustatory zone of the NST. SP-, but not ENK-like immunoreactivity was also observed in long courses of axon bundles traversing the brainstem enroute to the NST. Local application of colchicine engendered the appearance of a moderate number of SP-positive somata that were mostly clustered in the medial, central and intermediate subnuclei, as well as being scattered throughout the remainder of the NST, including the gustatory zone. A low number of isolated ENK-positive somata were also observed throughout the NST. The somal areas of the SP- and ENK-positive somata averaged 86.3 and 81.8 microns 2, respectively. The ISHH studies were performed using 2 selective oligodeoxynucleotide probes with complementary sequences to mRNAs encoding gamma-preprotachykinin (PPT) and preproenkephalin (PPE) molecules. Overall, the cellular expression of PPT mRNA within the NST corresponded both in distribution and in number to those identified by immunohistochemical analyses using anti-SP serum. In contrast, ISHH analyses monitored a significantly greater number of PPE-expressing somata in the medial, central, intermediate and ventrolateral nuclei than were ENK immunoreactive. These findings indicate that tachykinin and opioid peptide phenotypes are represented in neurons throughout the hamster NST and suggest a functional role for PPT- and PPE-related peptide forms in the modulation of afferent general visceral and gustatory information.

Animals

Model for the dynamic responses of taste receptor cells to salty stimuli. I. Function of lipid bilayer membranes.

The dynamic response of the lipid bilayer membrane is studied theoretically using a microscopic model of the membrane. The time courses of membrane potential variations due to monovalent salt stimulation are calculated explicitly under various conditions. A set of equations describing the time evolution of membrane surface potential and diffusion potential is derived and solved numerically. It is shown that a rather simple membrane such as lipid bilayer has functions capable of reproducing the following properties of dynamic response observed in gustatory receptor potential. Initial transient depolarization does not occur under Ringer adaptation but does under water. It appears only for comparatively rapid flows of stimuli, the peak height of transient response is expressed by a power function of the flow rate, and the membrane potential gradually decreases after reaching its peak under long and strong stimulation. The dynamic responses in the present model arise from the differences between the time dependences in the surface potential phi s and the diffusion potential phi d across a membrane. Under salt stimulation phi d cannot immediately follow the variation in phi s because of the delay due to the charging up of membrane capacitance. It is suggested that lipid bilayer in the apical membrane is the most probable agency producing the initial phasic response to the stimulation.

Animals

Enhancement of salt intake by choline chloride.

The ingestion of salt (NaCl) in most societies far exceeds levels that are considered necessary and safe. To reduce salt intake, a rat model of salt taste acceptance was created to identify novel, more palatable salt substitutes/enhancers. To induce salt craving, male Sprague-Dawley rats were placed on a low-salt diet and injected weekly (SC) with either 100 mg/kg of deoxycorticosterone acetate (DOCA) or its vehicle, peanut oil. Following 16 h of fluid deprivation, intake was evaluated in a one-bottle acceptance procedure. The DOCA-injected animals consumed large volumes of salt-containing solutions (up to 120 ml in 2 h) and showed sensitivity to and specificity for the salt taste (generally lacking acceptance of dextrose, KCl, ammonium chloride, and water solutions). Using this model, choline chloride was identified as having salt taste-enhancing properties. Choline chloride (0.1-0.7%) significantly enhanced the intake of a dilute salt solution (0.1%). The relevance of the rat model was demonstrated in human taste trials; choline chloride enhanced the palatability of and preference for foods containing this compound. The results of the present experiments support the use of this animal model for evaluating compounds for salt-like taste qualities and suggest that choline chloride will be an effective salt taste enhancer in man.

Animals

Interaction of conformationally flexible agonists with the active site of sweet taste. A study of arylureas.

The conformation of tolylureas has been studied by means of X-ray diffraction, NMR spectroscopy, and semiempirical quantum-mechanical calculations. The flat shape of meta and para isomers allows a good interaction with the model sites for bitter and sweet taste, respectively, whereas the ortho isomer cannot fit the sites because of the relative arrangements of the aryl and amide planes and because of poor hydrophobic interactions. The consistency of the conformational results with the sweet taste model site, previously proposed by the authors, is emphasized by the good fit of dulcine, a sweeter para-substituted arylurea.

Humans