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. 2011 Jun 22;31(25):9101–9110. doi: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0404-11.2011

Figure 6.

Figure 6.

Heat maps of the nTS show that tastant-specific activation is virtually absent in the gustatory region of the nTS of P2X-dblKO mice. Within each chart, each three-by-two box represents one level of the nTS subdivided into the component subregions: medial-mid-lateral in dorsal (D) and ventral (V) tiers. Each heat map is color coded (blue, minimal; red, maximal) with red denoting the maximum number of c-Fos-positive cells (WT or KO) for each stimulus (water, NaCl, MSG, or glutamate) across both genotypes. A, The heat map for raw Fos-LI in response to water is included for comparison with the other tastant-specific heat maps. Raw c-Fos counts can be obtained by adding the water count for each subregion in A to its corresponding tastant-specific count in B and C. The magenta line in A indicates the approximate boundary between gustatory/oral (anterior and lateral) and visceral (posterior and medial) representation in the nTS based on both of electrophysiological recordings of taste-evoked responses and central projections of the chorda tympani, glossopharyngeal, greater superficial petrosal nerves, the trigeminal nerve, and the vagus nerve (Whitehead and Frank, 1983; Norgren and Smith, 1988; Travers, 1993; Travers and Norgren, 1995; Hallock and Di Lorenzo, 2006; McCaughey, 2007; Whitehead and Finger, 2008; Corson et al., 2010). A–D, In WT mice, water produced little raw Fos-LI (A); however, NaCl (B), MSG (C), and glutamate (D) stimulation produce different tastant-specific (raw count for each taste minus the average water response for each subregion for each genotype) spatial patterns of activation in WT animals (left), especially within rostral (gustatory) nTS. In P2X-dblKO mice, water produced significantly more Fos-LI (A, right) than it did in WT animals. However, tastant-specific Fos-LI in response to taste stimulation was virtually absent in rostral nTS areas in KO mice (B–D, right). Despite the absence of tastant-induced c-Fos signal in rostral nTS in P2X-dblKO mice, significant quality-related Fos-LI remained in caudal (visceral) nTS areas. *, Significantly different from water-evoked Fos-LI within each genotype; ‡, MSG-evoked c-Fos expression significantly different from NaCl-evoked c-Fos expression.