A mesoscopic connectome for taste processing in non-human primates revealed by event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging
Oral presentation
The examination of central taste processing affords the unique opportunity to study the interactions between sensory regions, central integrators, and effector targets. Here, the mesoscopic taste processing connectivity was revealed by single voxel- and region-level univariate regression modeling of the underlying BOLD signal during the delivery of sweet, sour and salt tastants. We investigated the functional information processing across anatomically defined cortical and subcortical regions using ultra-high field (7T) functional magnetic resonance imaging in anesthetized macaque monkeys. A regional beta-series correlation method was implemented to assess functional connectivity across brain regions involved in taste processing, collectively forming the taste connectome. Our analysis showed consistent connectome-wide correlations across all three tastants and significant callosal connections between regions across hemispheres. A seed-based functional connectivity analysis was additionally conducted to examine the role of three different insular cortex sub-regions (mid-dorsal, anterior dorsal, and anterior ventral insular cortex) in taste processing. Comparing the connectivity profiles of these insular sub-regions, the anterior ventral insular cortex activity was most correlated across the taste connectome nodes, extending from the insular cortex to the dorsal striatum, amygdala and prefrontal cortex. An unbiased modularity analysis was also performed on the graph of the taste connectome using community detection methods. These results revealed a hierarchical arrangement of the connectome’s subcortical and cortical nodes, with three regional modules connected across the entire taste connectome. In whole, our results indicate a consistent interaction network for sweet, sour and salt taste qualities as well as a bilaterally inter-connected scheme for modular taste processing across the brain.