Dedicated odor-taste stimulation design for fMRI flavor studies

BACKGROUND

Flavor is a mental representation that results from the brain's integration of at least odor and taste, and fMRI can highlight brain-related areas. However, delivering stimuli during fMRI can be challenging especially when administrating liquid stimuli in supine position. It remains unclear how and when odorants are released in the nose and how to improve odorant release.

NEW METHOD

We used a proton transfer reaction mass spectrometer (PTR-MS) to monitor the in vivo release of odorants via the retronasal pathway during retronasal odor-taste stimulation in a supine position. We tested techniques to improve odorant release, including avoiding or delaying swallowing and velum open training (VOT).

RESULTS

Odorant release was observed during retronasal stimulation, before swallowing, and in a supine position. VOT did not improve odorant release. Odorant release during stimulation had a latency more optimal for fitting with BOLD timing than after swallowing.

COMPARISON WITH EXISTING METHOD(S)

Previous in vivo measurements of odorant release under fMRI-like conditions showed that odorant release occurred only after swallowing. On the contrary, a second study found that aroma release could occur before swallowing, but participants were sitting.

CONCLUSION

Our method shows optimal odorant release during the stimulation phase, meeting the criteria for high-quality brain imaging of flavor processing without swallowing-related motion artifacts. These findings provide an important advancement in understanding the mechanisms underlying flavor processing in the brain.

Chemogenetic silencing of hippocampus and amygdala reveals a double dissociation in periadolescent obesogenic diet-induced memory alterations

In addition to numerous metabolic comorbidities, obesity is associated with several adverse neurobiological outcomes, especially learning and memory alterations. Obesity prevalence is rising dramatically in youth and is persisting in adulthood. This is especially worrying since adolescence is a crucial period for the maturation of certain brain regions playing a central role in memory processes such as the hippocampus and the amygdala. We previously showed that periadolescent, but not adult, exposure to obesogenic high-fat diet (HFD) had opposite effects on hippocampus- and amygdala-dependent memory, impairing the former and enhancing the latter. However, the causal role of these two brain regions in periadolescent HFD-induced memory alterations remains unclear. Here, we first showed that periadolescent HFD induced long-term, but not short-term, object recognition memory deficits, specifically when rats were exposed to a novel context. Using chemogenetic approaches to inhibit targeted brain regions, we then demonstrated that recognition memory deficits are dependent on the activity of the ventral hippocampus, but not the basolateral amygdala. On the contrary, the HFD- induced enhancement of conditioned odor aversion specifically requires amygdala activity. Taken together, these findings suggest that HFD consumption throughout adolescence impairs long-term object recognition memory through alterations of ventral hippocampal activity during memory acquisition. Moreover, these results further highlight the bidirectional effects of adolescent HFD on hippocampal and amygdala functions.

Neurogenesis in the olfactory bulb induced by paced mating in the female rat is opioid dependent

The possibility to control the rate of sexual stimulation that the female rat receives during a mating encounter (pacing) increases the number of newborn neurons that reach the granular layer of the accessory olfactory bulb (AOB). If females mate repeatedly, the increase in the number of neurons is observed in other regions of the AOB and in the main olfactory bulb (MOB). It has also been shown that paced mating induces a reward state mediated by opioids. There is also evidence that opioids modulate neurogenesis. In the present study, we evaluated whether the opioid receptor antagonist naloxone (NX) could reduce the increase in neurogenesis in the AOB induced by paced mating. Ovariectomized female rats were randomly divided in 5 different groups: 1) Control (not mated) treated with saline, 2) control (not mated) treated with naloxone, 3) females that mated without controlling the sexual interaction (no-pacing), 4) females injected with saline before pacing the sexual interaction and 5) females injected with NX before a paced mating session. We found, as previously described, that paced mating induced a higher number of new cells in the granular layer of the AOB. The administration of NX before paced mating, blocked the increase in the number of newborn cells and prevented these cells from differentiating into neurons. These data suggest that opioid peptides play a fundamental role in the neurogenesis induced by paced mating in female rats.

Retrieval is not necessary to trigger reconsolidation of object recognition memory in the perirhinal cortex

Memory retrieval has been considered as requisite to initiate memory reconsolidation; however, some studies indicate that blocking retrieval does not prevent memory from undergoing reconsolidation. Since N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) and α-amino-3-hydroxy-5-methyl-4-isoxazolepropionic acid (AMPA) glutamate receptors in the perirhinal cortex have been involved in object recognition memory formation, the present study evaluated whether retrieval and reconsolidation are independent processes by manipulating these glutamate receptors. The results showed that AMPA receptor antagonist infusions in the perirhinal cortex blocked retrieval, but did not affect memory reconsolidation, although NMDA receptor antagonist infusions disrupted reconsolidation even if retrieval was blocked. Importantly, neither of these antagonists disrupted short-term memory. These data suggest that memory underwent reconsolidation even in the absence of retrieval.