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Updated: Jun 28, 2026

New Methods to Study Gustatory Coding
Published on: June 29, 2017
Interaction between gustatory depolarizing receptor potential and efferent-induced slow depolarizing synaptic
Toshihide Sato1, Kazuhisa Nishishita, Yukio Okada
1Division of Integrative Sensory Physiology, Nagasaki University Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, Nagasaki 852-8588, Japan. toshi@net.nagasaki-u.ac.jp
Abstract:
Electrical stimulation of parasympathetic nerve (PSN) efferent fibers in the glossopharyngeal nerve induced a slow depolarizing synaptic potential (DSP) in frog taste cells under hypoxia. The objective of this study is to examine the interaction between a gustatory depolarizing receptor potential (GDRP) and a slow DSP. The amplitude of slow DSP added to a tastant-induced GDRP of 10 mV was suppressed to 60% of control slow DSPs for NaCl and acetic acid stimulations, but to 20-30% for quinine-HCl (Q-HCl) and sucrose stimulations. On the other hand, when a GDRP was induced during a prolonged slow DSP, the amplitude of GDRPs induced by 1 M NaCl and 1 M sucrose was suppressed to 50% of controls, but that by 1 mM acetic acid and 10 mM Q-HCl unchanged. It is concluded that the interaction between GDRPs and efferent-induced slow DSPs in frog taste cells under hypoxia derives from the crosstalk between a gustatory receptor current across the receptive membrane and a slow depolarizing synaptic current across the proximal subsynaptic membrane of taste cells.
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