Characterization of Parabrachial Subnuclei in Mice with Regard to Salt Tastants: Possible Independence of Taste Relay from Visceral Processing

We examined whether salt taste and/or abdominal illness were dealt within different subnuclei in the parabrachial nucleus (PBN) in mice, using retrograde tracing methods and c-Fos-like immunoreactivity (FLI) detection procedures. Some PBN subnuclei have distinct functions and receive various sensory inputs from the nucleus of the solitary tract (NTS) and other areas and relay them to the higher order nuclei such as the thalamus. The afferent-dependent pattern of FLI has been investigated in the PBN. However, it is unclear in which PBN subnuclei the tastants induce c-Fos, or whether PBN subnuclei process taste inputs separately from other inputs, or integrate them. After the tracer injections into the thalamic taste relay, the retrograde labeled cells revealed the taste relay cells in the PBN at the boundary with the superior cerebellar peduncle of both the inner part of the external lateral subnucleus and the medial subnucleus and in the waist area. On the other hand, NaCl intake induced intense FLI in the dorsal lateral subnucleus, whereas LiCl intake yielded intense FLI in both the dorsal lateral subnucleus and the outer part of the external lateral subnucleus. Thus, the present findings that subnuclei relaying taste information to the thalamus do not yield FLI in response to salt taste and abdominal illness indicate that they lack FLI yielding pathways or that they are independent from the subnuclei processing salt taste and visceral information via c-Fos in mice.