Neural Coding of Gustatory Information in the Nucleus of the Solitary Tract in Lean and Obese Awake Freely-licking Rats

Taste perception changes with obesity but the underlying neural changes remain poorly understood. To address this issue, we recorded taste responses from single cells in the nucleus tractus solitarius (NTS, the fist central synapse in the gustatory circuit) in awake, diet-induced obese [(DIO; [≥]8wks on a high-energy diet (HED)] and lean rats. Rats were implanted with a bundle of microelectrodes in the NTS and allowed to recover. Water-deprived rats were allowed to freely lick various tastants in an experimental chamber. Taste stimuli included an array of sapid stimuli dissolved in artificial saliva (AS). Each taste trial consisted of 5 consecutive licks followed by 5 AS licks presented on a VR5 schedule. Results showed that taste responses in NTS cells in DIO rats (n=49) were smaller in magnitude, shorter in duration and longer in latency that those in lean rats (n=74). However, there were proportionately more taste-responsive cells in DIO than in lean rats. Lick coherence in DIO rats was significantly lower than in lean rats, both in taste-responsive and lick-related cells (n=172 in lean; n=65 in DIO). Analyses of temporal coding showed that taste cells in DIO rats conveyed less information about taste quality than cells in lean rats. Collectively, results suggest that a HED produces blunted, but more prevalent, responses to taste in the NTS and a weakened association of taste responses with ingestive behavior. These neural adaptations may represent both negative effects and compensatory mechanisms of a HED that may underlie deficits in taste-related behavior associated with obesity.