Effects of acids on neural activity elicited by other taste stimuli in therat chorda tympani

The purpose of this study is whether the gustatory neural response of taste cell to a binary mixture with threshold concentration of acid becomes syne rgistic or antagonistic can be estimated from the whole chorda tympani (CT) nerve in the rat. The present data demonstrate that acids are synergistic enhancer for sugars, and suppressor for NaCl and QHCl, but no effect to gly cine and alanine. These results suggest that the acid was modifying the int eraction of the other stimulus with its transduction mechanism. (C) 2000 El sevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.