The Journal of Neurophysiology Vol. 81 No. 6 June 1999, pp. 2636-2646
Copyright ©1999 by the American Physiological Society

Neural Representation of the Taste of NaCl and KCl in Gustatory Neurons of the Hamster Solitary Nucleus

Department of Anatomy and Neurobiology and Program in Neuroscience, University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland 21201-1509

Boughter Jr., John D., Steven J. St. John, and David V. Smith. Neural Representation of the Taste of NaCl and KCl in Gustatory Neurons of the Hamster Solitary Nucleus. J. Neurophysiol. 81: 2636-2646, 1999.Neural representation of the taste of NaCl and KCl in gustatory neurons of the hamster solitary nucleus. NaCl and KCl are monovalent salts that can be discriminated behaviorally by hamsters on the basis of their tastes. We examined the effects of the passive Na⁺ channel blocker amiloride on responses to both of these salts in 34 taste-responsive neurons of the nucleus of the solitary tract (NST) in the hamster. The effects of amiloride were assessed with two different, commonly employed stimulus protocols. Additionally, concentration-response functions for each salt were measured in 37 neurons. Cells were characterized by their best response to (in M) 0.03 NaCl, 0.1 sucrose, 0.003 HCl, 0.001 quinine hydrochloride, and 0.1 KCl. In neurons classified as NaCl-best, amiloride reversibly blocked responses to both NaCl and KCl. In neurons classified as HCl-best, amiloride had no effect on either stimulus. In sucrose-best neurons, amiloride blocked the response to NaCl but not KCl. These results support the hypothesis that both salts are transduced by at least two different receptor mechanisms. In the NST, information arising from these different inputs is maintained in discrete populations of neurons. In addition to differences in amiloride sensitivity, the cell types also differed in their responses to the salts across concentration. At midrange salt concentrations, NaCl-best neurons were far more responsive to NaCl than KCl, whereas HCl- and sucrose-best neurons responded equivalently to the two salts at all concentrations. Because NaCl- and HCl-best cells cannot by themselves distinguish NaCl from KCl, it is the relative activity across these cell types that comprises the code for taste discrimination.