RESEARCH
The lab is using Drosophila to understand the mechanism driving feeding behaviour following taste detection and food ingestion.
Sweet taste perception and integration
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One of my primary interest is to understand how flies interact with their environment and how taste is detected, integrated and translated into appropriate feeding behaviour. Here we aim at understanding the neural network involved in taste detection and feeding control by the use of the STROBE, a previously automated optogenetic device conceived in the GORDON Lab at the University of British Columbia (Musso et al., 2019).
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Caloric post-ingestive integration
Vertical Divider
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Taste sensing is not the only aspect of feeding regulation. Indeed, during a meal course, nutrients ingested are detected in the guts and in the brain by specific sensors which then, modulate the feeding sequence. During my postdoctorate in the GORDON Lab, I uncovered a new mechanism investigating how the satiating effect of glucose regulate the feeding-promoting effect of fructose (Musso et al., 2021). Surprisingly, the post-ingestive detection of nutrients is still poorly understood. Here we aim at identifying and characterizing new sensor detecting nutrients during food ingestion and integrate them in the complex frame of feeding regulation.
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Sweet taste and caloric post-ingestive integration
Taste and post-ingestive nutrient detection are two mechanisms evaluating food quality. In fact, taste acts as a predictor of the incoming nutrient. As an example, sweet taste predicts energy. But, a growing number of food available displays an uncoupling between sweet taste and energy by the use of Non or Low-Caloric Sweeteners (NCS or LCS). In a previous study, I demonstrated that flies devaluate the value associated to sweet taste following ingestion of non-caloric sugar (Musso et al., 2017). However, how taste devaluation impacts feeding behaviour as well as metabolism remains unclear. Here, we plan to tackle this question as well as identifying the neural substrate leading to this phenomenom.
Technics highlight
We use state of the art technics to investigate fly feeding
Behaviour |
Optogenetic |
Calcium imaging |