Neuroscience Faculty

Neural basis of gustation, animal psychophysics, sensory processes, regulation of ingestive behavior, taste preferences and aversions.

Assessment of taste function in mice with genetic deletions of taste receptors.
Analysis of function following transection and regeneration of gustatory nerves.
Evaluation of taste function following targeted damage in central gustatory structures.

Spector, A. C. , Guagliardo, N. A., and St. John, S. J. (1996) Amiloride disrupts NaCl vs. KCl discrimination performance: Implications for salt taste coding in the rat. Journal of Neuroscience, 16, 8115-8122.

King, C. T., Garcea, M., and Spector, A. C. (2000) Glossopharyngeal nerve regeneration is essential for the complete recovery of quinine-stimulated oromotor rejection behaviors and central patterns of neuronal activity in the nucleus of the solitary tract in the rat. Journal of Neuroscience, 20, 1229-1238.

Spector, A. C. and Kopka, S. L. (2002) Rats fail to discriminate quinine from denatonium: Implications for the neural coding of bitter-tasting compounds. Journal of Neuroscience, 22, 1937-1941.

Spector, A. C. & Travers, S. P. (2005). The representation of taste quality in the mammalian nervous system. Behavioral and Cognitive Neuroscience Reviews, 4, 143-191.

Blonde, G. D., Garcea, M., & Spector, A. C. (2006). The relative effects of transection of the gustatory branches of the 7th and 9th cranial nerves on NaCl taste detection in rats. Behavioral Neuroscience, 120, 580-589.

Treesukosol, Y., Lyall, V., Heck, G. L., Desimone, J. A. & Spector, A. C. (2007) A psychophysical and electrophysiological analysis of salt taste in Trpv1 null mice. American Journal of Physiology: Regulatory, Integrative and Comparative Physiology, 292, R1799-R1809.