Makoto Sugita
Professor,Graduate
School of Biomedical Sciences,Hiroshima University
Sweet and bitter taste stimuli
evoke contrastive behavioral and emotional responses.
Therefore, the gustatory system
provides us with a precious model to understand the general
neuronal mechanisms of cognition, behavioral responses
such as aversion and attraction, and also emotional responses.
The specific aim in the present
study is to clarify the cellular and molecular aspects
underlying the linkage of taste inputs to contrastive behavioral
and emotional responses by employing genetic tracing of
taste neuronal circuitries for sweet and bitter in combination
with functional characterization of the specific neurons
in the circuitries.