# Affective neuroscience of taste reactivity

> **NIH NIH R01** · UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN AT ANN ARBOR · 2022 · $625,148

## Abstract

Project Summary/Abstract:
Positive affective reactions (i.e., ‘liking’) to pleasant life events are crucial to healthy psychological
function and well-being. Conversely, pathological hedonic dysfunction in ‘liking’ circuitry can cause
loss of positive affect (anhedonia), and excessive negative affect (dysphoria). These affective
dysfunctions have devastating consequences in mood disorders, such as major depression, bipolar
disorder, schizophrenia, etc.
It is therefore crucial to understand how normal brain affective mechanisms generate positive ‘liking’
reactions, and how dysfunction in brain ‘liking’ circuitry causes intense negative dysphoric affective
reactions, in order to develop better treatment for mood disorders. This proposal aims to make progress
towards those goals. Our previous studies identified a network of specialized brain mechanisms, or
pleasure-amplifying hedonic hotspots, that generate intense ‘liking’ reactions. These pleasure-intensifying
hedonic hotspots are small specialized subregions contained within limbic orbitofrontal cortex, insula,
nucleus accumbens and ventral pallidum, where optogenetic or neurochemical neural stimulations are
able to enhance ‘liking’ reactions. Our previous studies also identified dysfunction in hedonic hotspots
that produced excessive negative affect.
Yet the specific hedonic coding mechanisms within each brain hedonic hotspot that cause ‘liking’ still
remain unclear. Also unknown is how the hedonic hotspots functionally work together, to form a larger
and integrated hedonic brain circuit. Finally, it is unknown how particular neural dysfunctions in hedonic
hotspots cause intense negative ‘fear’ or ‘disgust’ reactions, or whether such excessive negative affect can
be successfully reversed. The studies proposed here will use sophisticated optogenetic and affective
neuroscience techniques to answer these questions. The results will provide insights into brain hedonic
circuitry, which in turn can provide a better scientific basis to guide development of future therapies for
anhedonia, anxiety and dysphoria disorders.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10371898
- **Project number:** 5R01MH063649-18
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN AT ANN ARBOR
- **Principal Investigator:** Kent C. Berridge
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2022
- **Award amount:** $625,148
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2001-05-01 → 2025-03-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10371898

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10371898, Affective neuroscience of taste reactivity (5R01MH063649-18). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-24 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10371898. Licensed CC0.

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