# Gustatory cortex and reward-based, taste-action associations

> **NIH NIH R01** · STATE UNIVERSITY NEW YORK STONY BROOK · 2020 · $454,495

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY
 The gustatory system processes tastants according to specific sensory and hedonic categories. In naïve
animals, gustatory stimuli are represented for the taste quality they evoke – i.e., sweet, salty, umami, bitter, sour
– and for their hedonic value (palatable or aversive). However, gustatory circuits are highly plastic and
representations can be modified by learning. The best example of gustatory plasticity comes from studies on
conditioned taste aversion (CTA) - a learning paradigm in which an innately palatable tastant becomes aversive
once paired with gastric illness. Electrophysiological recordings and imaging experiments demonstrate that CTA
leads to a persistent remapping of cortical representations of taste. While these studies have been instrumental
in demonstrating that the gustatory cortex (GC) can reshape how it represents taste, they do not clarify whether
persistent remapping is specific to aversive learning and to the hedonic dimension, or if it can occur also for other
forms of taste experience.
 The experiments in this grant will address this unanswered question by investigating whether reward-driven,
taste-action associations can modify and remap sensory representations. To this purpose, we modified a classic
two-alternative choice procedure. In this task, mice sample one out of four tastants (two sweets: sucrose [S1]
and maltose [S2]; two bitters: quinine [B1] and cycloheximide [B2]) from a central licking spout and respond by
licking one of two lateral spouts. In the main version of this task, mice will produce the same response to
incongruent pairs of tastants (i.e., sucrose or quinine -> lick lateral spout 1 vs maltose or cycloheximide -> lick
lateral spout 2). This version of the paradigm requires mice to ignore innate taste similarities and produce i)
similar responses for tastants with different qualities and opposite hedonics; ii) different responses for tastants
with similar qualities and hedonics. A number of additional behavioral paradigms will be used as controls.
 The experiments in this grant will test the overarching hypothesis that GC allows mice to form taste-action
associations and that this behavior is associated with task-related activity and plasticity of taste-evoked
responses. The proposed research focuses on the following aims: Aim #1 will develop a well-controlled
behavioral paradigm for training mice to form new taste-action associations. In addition, the experiments will rely
on chemogenetic and optogenetic inactivation of GC to determine its involvement in the performance of a taste-
action association task. Aim #2 will use electrophysiological methods to unveil plastic changes of single unit
spiking activity in GC of alert mice learning and performing a taste-action association task. Waveform analyses
will allow us to separate putative excitatory and inhibitory neurons and to follow their activity across days. Finally,
Aim #3 will rely on 2-photon calcium imaging in Gad2-T2a-NLS-mCh...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 9955243
- **Project number:** 5R01DC018227-02
- **Recipient organization:** STATE UNIVERSITY NEW YORK STONY BROOK
- **Principal Investigator:** Alfredo Fontanini
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $454,495
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2019-07-01 → 2024-06-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9955243

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 9955243, Gustatory cortex and reward-based, taste-action associations (5R01DC018227-02). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/9955243. Licensed CC0.

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