Functional recovery of the gustatory system after sodium deprivation during development: how much sodium and where

Restriction of maternal dietary sodium beginning on or before embryonic day 8 and continued thereafter results in reduced taste responses of the chorda tympani nerve to NaCl in the offspring. The effects of deprivation, however, are reversible. A single ingestive bout of 30 ml isotonic NaCl was sufficient to restore normal sodium taste, and the restorative effects of the single exposure apparently persisted throughout multiple generations of taste receptor cells. Furthermore, the recovery apparently did not depend on direct receptor cell-stimulus interactions. Rats permitted to drink 30 ml of isotonic NaCl, but not allowed to retain it, did not recover normal sodium taste responses, suggesting that factors other than taste stimulation are important in the restorative effects of sodium.