AJP - Regulatory, Integrative and Comparative Physiology, Vol 261, Issue 1 52-R58, Copyright © 1991 by American Physiological Society

ARTICLES

High dietary sodium enhances gustatory nerve activity and behavioral responses to NaCl

T. W. Priehs, K. J. Mooney and R. A. Bernard
Department of Physiology, Michigan State University, East Lansing 48824.

Neural and behavioral taste responses to NaCl were studied in rats receiving a high-salt diet. Salt preferences and voluntary sodium intake were measured by the 24-h two-bottle choice method over a wide concentration range of NaCl solutions. As expected, the salt-loaded rats showed lower preference responses for all the solutions tested, which were presented in ascending order from 0.001 to 1.0 M NaCl. However, they freely ingested significantly greater amounts of sodium than the controls by drinking larger volumes of saline solution throughout the hypotonic concentration range, from 0.001 to 0.1 M NaCl. They showed lower voluntary intake of sodium only for isotonic and hypertonic solutions. Electrophysiological recordings from the chorda tympani nerve showed that the taste responses of the salt-loaded rats were greater in magnitude than those of the controls, and the neural stimulus-response function of the experimental group had a significantly steeper slope but no apparent difference in threshold. These experiments indicate that salt-loaded rats have enhanced appetitive responses to NaCl that may be mediated by increased sensory input.

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