Ralph Norgren

Bio: Ralph Norgren is an academic researcher from Pennsylvania State University. The author has contributed to research in topics: Solitary tract & Taste aversion. The author has an hindex of 60, co-authored 131 publications receiving 14814 citations. Previous affiliations of Ralph Norgren include Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center & University of Pennsylvania.

Taste pathways to hypothalamus and amygdala

Abstract: The projections of a third order gustatory relay in the dorsal pons of rats have been traced using tritiated proline autoradiography and antidromic activation of pontine neurons from electrodes in the thalamus and amygdala. Labelled axons collect in the central tegmental tract and ascend to the thalamic taste area in the medial extension of the ventrobasal complex. The majority of the fibers remain ipsilateral, but a few cross in the rostral pons and midbrain. The largest crossing occurs at the level of the thalamic termination. Many fascicles of fibers continue rostrally by passing beneath the thalamic taste area, piercing the medial lemniscus, and spreading out along the dorsomedial corner of the internal capsule (IC). The terminal field at this level caps IC from the subthalamic nucleus down into the far-lateral hypothalamus. Labelled axons grandually penetrate through the internal capsule, and ramify throughout the underlying substantia innominata. This terminal zone extends laterally into the rostral end of the central nucleus of the amygdala, which is densely labelled to its caudal exremity. At the caudal end of the amygdala labelled fibers are visible in one component of the stria terminalis. These fibers can be followed over the dorsal thalamus into a smaller, but equally dense terminal area in the dorsolateral bed nucleus of the stria terminalis. The electrophysiological data demonstrate that pontine gustatory units can be antidromically activated by electrodes located in or near the central nucleus of the amygdala. Since many of the same units can also be driven from the thalamic taste area, at least some of the axons traced autoradiographically probably convey gustatory information to the hypothalamus and amygdala.

Ascending central gustatory pathways.

Abstract: The central gustatory pathways of the albino rat have been traced using a combined electrophysiological-neuroanatomical technique. Gustatory responses in the medulla were recorded in the region of the solitary nucleus which receives the seventh nerve primary afferents. Fibers traced from lesions of these recording sites did not cross as expected into the medial lemniscus, but instead travelled rostrally to terminate ipsilaterally in a small celled area dorsal and ventral to the brachium conjunctivum as it enters the pons. Since gustatory responses could be recorded in this region it represents a previously undescribed secondary “pontine taste area.” Lesions of PTA result in degeneration of a bilateral ascending pathway travelling in the dorsomedial tegmentum to terminate in the classical gustatory nuclei of the thalamus. Other fibers in this pathway continue rostrally and distribute in the subthalamus, dorsolateral hypothalamus and subpallidal gray in the ventral forebrain. These findings in a mammal resemble those established nearly three quarters of a century ago by Herrick ('05) in the carp, and confirm his prediction that “broad lines of similarity [would be found] between both the peripheral and central gustatory paths in all vertebrates”.

Central nervous system control of food intake

Abstract: New information regarding neuronal circuits that control food intake and their hormonal regulation has extended our understanding of energy homeostasis, the process whereby energy intake is matched to energy expenditure over time. The profound obesity that results in rodents (and in the rare human case as well) from mutation of key signalling molecules involved in this regulatory system highlights its importance to human health. Although each new signalling pathway discovered in the hypothalamus is a potential target for drug development in the treatment of obesity, the growing number of such signalling molecules indicates that food intake is controlled by a highly complex process. To better understand how energy homeostasis can be achieved, we describe a model that delineates the roles of individual hormonal and neuropeptide signalling pathways in the control of food intake and the means by which obesity can arise from inherited or acquired defects in their function.

How do you feel? Interoception: the sense of the physiological condition of the body.

Abstract: As humans, we perceive feelings from our bodies that relate our state of well-being, our energy and stress levels, our mood and disposition. How do we have these feelings? What neural processes do they represent? Recent functional anatomical work has detailed an afferent neural system in primates and in humans that represents all aspects of the physiological condition of the physical body. This system constitutes a representation of 'the material me', and might provide a foundation for subjective feelings, emotion and self-awareness.