Restriction of dietary sodium during gestation has major effects on taste function and anatomy in the offspring. The chorda tympani nerve of offspring that are maintained on sodium-reduced chow throughout life (NaDep) has reduced neurophysiological responses to sodium and altered morphology of its terminal field in the nucleus of the solitary tract. There are many anatomical and physiological s...

Taste sensation on the anterior tongue requires chorda tympani nerve function and connections with continuously renewing taste receptor cells. However, it is unclear which signaling pathways regulate the receptor cells to maintain chorda tympani sensation. Hedgehog (HH) signaling controls cell proliferation and differentiation in numerous tissues and is active in taste papillae and taste buds. ...

Many studies demonstrate that differentiation of certain sensory receptors during development is induced by their nerve supply. Thus the navigational accuracy of pioneering fibres to their targets is crucial to this process. The special gustatory elements of the facial and glossopharyngeal nerves are used extensively as model systems in this field. We examined the chorda tympani, the gustatory ...

reward and punishment representations in the human orbitofrontal cortex. Nat Neurosci 4:95–102. gawa H, Sato M, Yamashita S (1968) Chorda tympani fibers of the rat and hamster to gustatory and thermal stimuli. J Physiol 199:

Dysgeusia, characterized as an altered perception of taste to any one of the four major tastant qualities (sweet, salt, sour, and bitter), is frequently experienced after dental anesthesia and neuroma (middle ear) surgery. Many medications, ranging from antiinflammatory drugs and protease inhibitors to antihypertensive drugs such as amiloride, have also been found to disrupt gustatory perceptio...

Taste buds are unusual in requiring ATP as a transmitter to activate sensory nerve fibers. In response to taste stimuli, taste cells release ATP, activating purinergic receptors containing the P2X2 and P2X3 subunits on taste nerves. In turn, the released ATP is hydrolyzed to ADP by a plasma membrane nucleoside triphosphate previously identified as nucleoside triphosphate diphosphohydrolase-2 (N...

Combining unilateral denervation of anterior tongue taste buds with a low-sodium diet in rats results in a rapid, dramatic, and selective attenuation of neurophysiological sodium taste responses from the intact side of the tongue. The transduction pathway responsible for the attenuated response is through the epithelial sodium channel (Hill and Phillips, 1994). Current experiments extend these ...