Department of Neurosciences, Medical Faculty, University of Geneva, 1 rue Michel-Servet, 1211 Genève 4, Switzerland.
Trends Neurosci. 2010 Jul;33(7):326-34. doi: 10.1016/j.tins.2010.04.002. Epub 2010 May 20.
To understand gustatory physiology and associated dysfunctions it is important to know how oral taste stimuli are encoded both in the periphery and in taste-related brain centres. The identification of distinct taste receptors, together with electrophysiological recordings and behavioral assessments in response to taste stimuli, suggest that information about distinct taste modalities (e.g. sweet versus bitter) are transmitted from the periphery to the brain via segregated pathways. By contrast, gustatory neurons throughout the brain are more broadly tuned, indicating that ensembles of neurons encode taste qualities. Recent evidence reviewed here suggests that the coding of gustatory stimuli is not immutable, but is dependant on a variety of factors including appetite-regulating molecules and associative learning.
为了理解味觉生理学和相关的功能障碍，了解口腔味觉刺激在外周和味觉相关的大脑中枢是如何编码的非常重要。不同味觉受体的鉴定，以及对味觉刺激的电生理记录和行为评估，表明关于不同味觉模式（例如甜与苦）的信息是通过分离的途径从外周传递到大脑的。相比之下，大脑中的味觉神经元具有更广泛的调谐性，这表明神经元集合编码味觉质量。本文回顾了最近的证据表明，味觉刺激的编码不是一成不变的，而是取决于多种因素，包括调节食欲的分子和联想学习。
