# Ontogeny of Central Neural Taste Responses

> **NIH NIH R01** · UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA · 2020 · $600,039

## Abstract

Project Summary/Abstract
The developing gustatory system is characterized by impressive structural and functional changes. The central
taste pathway in rodents is especially plastic during normal development, even at the first synaptic relay.
Structurally, the terminations (i.e., terminal fields) of neurons carrying taste information from taste buds to the
nucleus of the solitary tract (NST) in the medulla are reduced in size, or “pruned”, to about half of their size --
beginning just before weaning and extending for about 10 days after weaning. Functionally, the period of
“pruning” occurs coincident with the increase in taste-elicited neural activity in gustatory nerves, suggesting a
requisite activity-dependent component. Moreover, experimental manipulations of neural activity and the
animal’s dietary history during development interrupts the normal “pruning” of terminal fields, indicating that
both activity-dependent and activity-independent factors play a role in the developmental process of circuit
refinement. The long-term goal of this project is to understand how the central gustatory system is assembled
and then refined by experience. The specific aims of this proposal examine 1) how neurons that innervate
single taste buds on the anterior 2/3 of the tongue map onto the NST and how the projections change during
normal development and in adult mice that have altered neural activity throughout development or an altered
dietary history, and 2) how the neuro-immune molecular cascade operating during normal development is
interrupted in mice that have altered neural activity or an altered dietary history. The aims of the project will be
addressed through coordinated techniques of single taste bud labels, peripheral taste nerve recordings, central
nervous system tract tracing, extensive analyses of synaptic elements at the light and electron microscopic
level, and optogenetic recovery of function experiments. These studies will provide new and important
information about the development and plasticity of the central gustatory system, the interplay between the
immune and gustatory systems during development, and more broadly, they will be useful in determining the
role that the maternal diet and taste-elicited activity have on organizing the developing sense of taste.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 9889940
- **Project number:** 5R01DC000407-32
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA
- **Principal Investigator:** DAVID L HILL
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $600,039
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 1986-08-01 → 2023-03-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9889940

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 9889940, Ontogeny of Central Neural Taste Responses (5R01DC000407-32). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-24 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/9889940. Licensed CC0.

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