Smith D V, Travers J B, Van Buskirk R L
Brain Res Bull. 1979 May-Jun;4(3):359-72. doi: 10.1016/s0361-9230(79)80014-3.
Responses of neurons in the nucleus tractus solitarius (NTS) and parabrachial pons (Pb pons) of the hamster to 10 gustatory stimuli were compared to behavioral similarities among these compounds. Animals were given a conditioned taste aversion to one of the 10 stimuli by pairing it with an induced gastrointestinal illness. Following this procedure, the degree of generalization of the learned taste aversion to each of the other compounds was measured. Behavioral similarity profiles were derived for each stimulus from the similarities in the generalization profiles of each pair of compounds. The across-neuron correlations in the firing rates evoked by these stimuli in the NTS cells corresponded quite well to these behavioral profiles, as did these neural correlations among Pb pontine cells, except for those correlations involving quinine. Sucrose-best cells in the Pb pons are too broadly responsive to account for the behavioral similarity functions for sweet-tasting stimuli, although other best-stimulus categories of cells (NaCl- and HCl-best) showed response profiles quite similar to the behavioral profiles, as did all best-stimulus classes of cells in the NTS.
将仓鼠孤束核（NTS）和脑桥臂旁核（Pb脑桥）中的神经元对10种味觉刺激的反应与这些化合物之间的行为相似性进行了比较。通过将其中一种10种刺激与诱发的胃肠道疾病配对，使动物对其产生条件性味觉厌恶。在此过程之后，测量了习得的味觉厌恶对其他每种化合物的泛化程度。根据每对化合物泛化曲线的相似性，得出每种刺激的行为相似性曲线。这些刺激在NTS细胞中诱发的放电率的跨神经元相关性与这些行为曲线相当吻合，Pb脑桥细胞之间的神经相关性也是如此，但涉及奎宁的相关性除外。Pb脑桥中的蔗糖最佳反应细胞反应过于宽泛，无法解释甜味刺激的行为相似性函数，尽管其他最佳刺激类别细胞（NaCl最佳和HCl最佳）的反应曲线与行为曲线非常相似，NTS中的所有最佳刺激类别细胞也是如此。
