Humans recognize information obtained from sensory organs such as the mouth and eyes through the transmission of hundreds of billions of nerve cells in the brain, and judge the response and act accordingly.In order to elucidate the mechanism, it is necessary to monitor how multiple neural activities are transmitted, but it was difficult to accurately capture the movement because the speed of information transmission is extremely high.Professor Yoshimi used Amefurashi, which has extremely large nerve cells compared to other organisms, to administer ammonium salts to the ganglia that correspond to the brain, slowing the transmission speed of the cranial nerves during taste recognition, which was impossible until now. We have established a method to capture the transmission activity of the cranial nerves.As a result, it became clear that when the wakame seaweed that Aplysia likes and the gelidiaceae that it dislikes are given, specific parts of the brain are activated and the activity for the disliked taste begins earlier.It was also confirmed that by repeating the experiment of giving an electric shock after giving a favorite taste, the taste that was previously recognized as "like" is now recognized as "dislike" by learning.

Professor Yoshimi says that in the future, we will clarify the transmission mechanism of how neural signals are transmitted in the brain when recognizing things, and the learning mechanism in which recognition changes depending on experience.By elucidating the mechanism of recognition and learning by nerve transmission in the brain, artificial sensory organs tailored to each symptom such as human dysgeusia, eye and ear disorders, and nervous system diseases such as dementia and depression It is expected to be applied to the development of new treatment methods.

Source:[Shibaura Institute of Technology] Developed a new method to monitor the transmission activity of Aplysia's cranial nerves