Equipotency of hypertonic solutions of mannitol and sodium chloride in eliciting thirst in the dog

Dopamine subsystems that track internal states

Food and water are rewarding in part because they satisfy our internal needs1,2. Dopaminergic neurons in the ventral tegmental area (VTA) are activated by gustatory rewards3-5, but how animals learn to associate these oral cues with the delayed physiological effects of ingestion is unknown. Here we show that individual dopaminergic neurons in the VTA respond to detection of nutrients or water at specific stages of ingestion. A major subset of dopaminergic neurons tracks changes in systemic hydration that occur tens of minutes after thirsty mice drink water, whereas different dopaminergic neurons respond to nutrients in the gastrointestinal tract. We show that information about fluid balance is transmitted to the VTA by a hypothalamic pathway and then re-routed to downstream circuits that track the oral, gastrointestinal and post-absorptive stages of ingestion. To investigate the function of these signals, we used a paradigm in which a fluid's oral and post-absorptive effects can be independently manipulated and temporally separated. We show that mice rapidly learn to prefer one fluid over another based solely on its rehydrating ability and that this post-ingestive learning is prevented if dopaminergic neurons in the VTA are selectively silenced after consumption. These findings reveal that the midbrain dopamine system contains subsystems that track different modalities and stages of ingestion, on timescales from seconds to tens of minutes, and that this information is used to drive learning about the consequences of ingestion.

Thirst neurons anticipate the homeostatic consequences of eating and drinking

Thirst motivates animals to drink in order to maintain fluid balance. Thirst has conventionally been viewed as a homeostatic response to changes in blood volume or tonicity. However, most drinking behaviour is regulated too rapidly to be controlled by blood composition directly, and instead seems to anticipate homeostatic imbalances before they arise. How this is achieved remains unknown. Here we reveal an unexpected role for the subfornical organ (SFO) in the anticipatory regulation of thirst in mice. By monitoring deep-brain calcium dynamics, we show that thirst-promoting SFO neurons respond to inputs from the oral cavity during eating and drinking and then integrate these inputs with information about the composition of the blood. This integration allows SFO neurons to predict how ongoing food and water consumption will alter fluid balance in the future and then to adjust behaviour pre-emptively. Complementary optogenetic manipulations show that this anticipatory modulation is necessary for drinking in several contexts. These findings provide a neural mechanism to explain longstanding behavioural observations, including the prevalence of drinking during meals, the rapid satiation of thirst, and the fact that oral cooling is thirst-quenching.

Drinking induced by cellular dehydration in the quail, Coturnix coturnix japonica

1. Drinking was induced in water-replete quail 5-10 min after intravenous injection of hypertonic NaCl (0.69 osmol/l) or sucrose (1.06 osmol/l), but hypertonic urea (2.78 osmol/l) failed to induce drinking. 2. The birds drank approximately the amount required to dilute the injected solutes to isotonicity for each given dose of NaCl or sucrose. 3. The plasma angiotensin II level decreased after injection of 7% NaCl (2.5 osmol/l), but it increased after injection of an equi-osmolar solution of sucrose (65%). 4. Plasma osmolality and Na+ concentration returned quickly to control levels, and then decreased further, after injection of 7% NaCl or 65% sucrose. 5. Blood volume and blood pressure increased immediately after injection of 7% NaCl or 65% sucrose. 6. These results show that drinking is induced after injection of hypertonic solutions exclusively by cellular dehydration, and other regulatory mechanisms for thirst, such as extracellular dehydration and the renin-angiotensin system, are rather inhibitory after injection of hypertonic NaCl.

Drinking in goats as effect of simultaneous intravenous infusions of angiotensin (I or II) and hypertonic NaCl or mannitol

Drinking during the simultaneous intravenous infusion of angiotensin I (AI) or II (AII) and hypertonic NaCl or mannitol was studied in the goat, and was compared to the dipsogenic responses to the separate infusion of each of these four factors. Approximately the same amount of water was drunk during the infusion of AI/NaCl, AI/mannitol and AII/NaCl. The amount was roughly equal to the sum of the amounts taken when each of two paired stimuli was infused separately. Significantly less water was drunk in response to AII/mannitol. Somewhat more water was drunk during the separate AI than during the separate AII infusion. Administration of an AI converting enzyme inhibitor completely abolished the AI contribution to drinking during the AI/NaCl infusion but did not reduce AII/NaCl drinking, indicating that the response to AI was entirely due to its conversion into AII. The possibility is discussed that the considerable difference between AI/mannitol and AII/mannitol drinking might have been the result of choroidal and/or ependymal AI converting enzyme activity.

Transient vasopressin release and thirst in response to prolonged intracerebroventricular infusions of hypertonic mannitol in saline

In the conscious goat infusions of 0.4 M mannitol in 0.15 M NaCl into the lateral cerebral ventricle (40 or 100 min, 0.02 ml/min) caused slight, transient vasopressin release and temporary thirst, whereas infusions or pure, hypertonic (0.7 M) mannitol did not elicit thirst and inhibited the basic vasopressin release in the nonhydrated animal. In contrast, infusions of equiosmolal (0.35 M) NaCl induced persistent thirst and pronounced elevation of the plasma vasopressin concentration throughout the infusion period. The cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) osmolality was raised by the same order of magnitude (= 13%) after the mannitol/NaCl and the hypertonic NaCl infusions. The CSF Na+ concentration was elevated by greater than 10% at 5 min after hypertonic NaCl infusions, but it was reduced by approximately 10% at 5 min after the mannitol/NaCl infusions. There was no appreciable difference in the CSF K+ concentration after the infusions. The results are discussed with regard to the possible importance of CSF Na+-concentration as opposed to strict osmotic factors for the excitation of receptors involved in the control of water balance.