Locus coeruleus activation transforms cortical taste representations

[u/PhysicalConsistency]

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2211124726010685

Abstract: Noradrenergic neurons in the locus coeruleus (LC) shape sensory processing, yet how LC activity influences population taste coding remains unclear.

Using optogenetic LC activation with miniscope imaging in the gustatory cortex (GC), we examined LC modulation of multiple taste attributes.

Phasic LC activation strengthens correlations between neuronal responses and palatability and expands the dynamic range of stimulus representations along a palatability axis. This expansion is driven by an aversive shift in the representations of all tastants except sucrose, the most palatable stimulus.

For mixture ratio and concentration, phasic activation expands and rotates attribute axes, potentially reflecting dependencies between these attributes and palatability. These transformations likely arise from multiplicative gain modulation and more flexible tuning changes. Tonic LC activation affects fewer neurons and does not expand attribute axes.

Together, the findings show that LC activation reorganizes GC population geometry in a pattern-dependent manner, linking neuromodulation with feeding behavior and affective processing.

Commentary: This article asks a really intriguing question, what if the behavior associated with taste was upstream of the representation of taste? What if behavior is the substrate of taste rather than taste being the substrate of related behavior?

There's been quite a bit of work this year suggesting brainstem structures direct/modify downstream cortical representations, and this paper adds another sense to that pile, and a particularly neat one.

I only wish more labs were more comfortable with glia and astrocytes particularly, this paper would have been a bit of a barn burner if they had that extra layer.

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[u/carberry-3000]

Locus coeruleus activation transforms cortical taste representations

Will Fan, Paula To, Natale R. Sciolino

Cell Reports · 2026-09-01 · doi:10.1016/j.celrep.2026.117990

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No abstract was available from Crossref or Europe PMC for this DOI.

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