Mendez-Hernandez Rebeca, Braga Isadora, Bali Avnika, Yang Mingxin, de Lartigue Guillaume
Monell Chemical Senses Center, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.
Department of Neuroscience, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.
Compr Physiol. 2025 Apr;15(2):e70010. doi: 10.1002/cph4.70010.
The vagus nerve is the body's primary sensory conduit from gut to brain, traditionally viewed as a passive relay for satiety signals. However, emerging evidence reveals a far more complex system-one that actively encodes diverse aspects of meal-related information, from mechanical stretch to nutrient content, metabolic state, and even microbial metabolites. This review challenges the view of vagal afferent neurons (VANs) as simple meal-termination sensors and highlights their specialized subpopulations, diverse sensory modalities, and downstream brain circuits, which shape feeding behavior, metabolism, and cognition. We integrate recent advances from single-cell transcriptomics, neural circuit mapping, and functional imaging to examine how VANs contribute to gut-brain communication beyond satiety, including their roles in food reward and memory formation. By synthesizing the latest research and highlighting emerging directions for the field, this review provides a comprehensive update on vagal sensory pathways and their role as integrators of meal information.
迷走神经是身体从肠道到大脑的主要感觉传导通道，传统上被视为饱腹感信号的被动中继器。然而，新出现的证据揭示了一个更为复杂的系统——一个能主动编码与进食相关信息的多个方面的系统，这些信息包括机械拉伸、营养成分、代谢状态，甚至微生物代谢产物。本综述对迷走神经传入神经元（VANs）作为简单的进食终止传感器的观点提出了挑战，并强调了它们的特殊亚群、多样的感觉模式以及下游脑回路，这些因素塑造了进食行为、新陈代谢和认知。我们整合了单细胞转录组学、神经回路映射和功能成像方面的最新进展，以研究VANs如何在饱腹感之外促进肠脑交流，包括它们在食物奖赏和记忆形成中的作用。通过综合最新研究并突出该领域的新方向，本综述全面更新了迷走神经感觉通路及其作为进食信息整合者的作用。
