# The neural basis of fatty acid taste

> **NIH NIH R01** · FLORIDA ATLANTIC UNIVERSITY · 2020 · $318,693

## Abstract

Project Summary
Fat represents a calorically potent food source that yields approximately twice the amount of energy as
carbohydrates or proteins per unit of mass. Dietary lipids are comprised of both triacylglycerides and fatty
acids, and growing evidence suggests that it is the free fatty acids that are detected by the gustatory system.
The highly palatable taste of fatty acids promotes food consumption, activates reward centers in mammals,
and contributes to hedonic feeding that underlies many metabolism-related disorders. Despite a role in the
etiology of metabolic diseases, little is known about how dietary fats are detected by the gustatory system to
promote feeding. We have shown that fatty acids function as appetitive tastants and identified the first putative
fatty acid receptor in the fly. This proposal seeks to identify the cellular and neural circuit principles that
underlie the detection and processing of fatty acids. In addition, these experiments will investigate whether
flies are capable of discriminating between different appetitive tastants, and whether fatty acids and sugars are
processed by shared or independent neuronal circuits. The completion of the proposed experiments will
provide a detailed understanding of fat taste, and inform fundamental principles of sensory coding that may be
shared across phyla.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 9979843
- **Project number:** 5R01DC017390-03
- **Recipient organization:** FLORIDA ATLANTIC UNIVERSITY
- **Principal Investigator:** Anupama Arun Dahanukar
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $318,693
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2018-08-01 → 2023-07-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9979843

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 9979843, The neural basis of fatty acid taste (5R01DC017390-03). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/9979843. Licensed CC0.

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