1. Correlation Between Activation of the Prelimbic Cortex, Basolateral Amygdala, and Agranular Insular Cortex During Taste Memory Formation.
- Author
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Uematsu A, Kitamura A, Iwatsuki K, Uneyama H, and Tsurugizawa T
- Subjects
- Animals, Avoidance Learning drug effects, Basolateral Nuclear Complex blood supply, Basolateral Nuclear Complex drug effects, Cerebral Cortex blood supply, Cerebral Cortex drug effects, Cholera Toxin metabolism, Diffusion Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Glutamate Decarboxylase metabolism, Image Processing, Computer-Assisted, Limbic Lobe blood supply, Limbic Lobe drug effects, Lithium Chloride pharmacology, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Male, Memory drug effects, Oxygen blood, Proto-Oncogene Proteins c-fos metabolism, Rats, Rats, Wistar, Statistics as Topic, Taste drug effects, Basolateral Nuclear Complex physiology, Cerebral Cortex physiology, Limbic Lobe physiology, Memory physiology, Taste physiology
- Abstract
Conditioned taste aversion (CTA) is a well-established learning paradigm, whereby animals associate tastes with subsequent visceral illness. The prelimbic cortex (PL) has been shown to be involved in the association of events separated by time. However, the nature of PL activity and its functional network in the whole brain during CTA learning remain unknown. Here, using awake functional magnetic resonance imaging and fiber tracking, we analyzed functional brain connectivity during the association of tastes and visceral illness. The blood oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) signal significantly increased in the PL after tastant and lithium chloride (LiCl) infusions. The BOLD signal in the PL significantly correlated with those in the amygdala and agranular insular cortex (IC), which we found were also structurally connected to the PL by fiber tracking. To precisely examine these data, we then performed double immunofluorescence with a neuronal activity marker (c-Fos) and an inhibitory neuron marker (GAD67) combined with a fluorescent retrograde tracer in the PL. During CTA learning, we found an increase in the activity of excitatory neurons in the basolateral amygdala (BLA) or agranular IC that project to the PL. Taken together, these findings clearly identify a role of synchronized PL, agranular IC, and BLA activity in CTA learning., (© The Author 2014. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.)
- Published
- 2015
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