QR2 Modulates Insular Cortex Redox to Enable Novel Taste Memory Formation

Material below summarizes the article Muscarinic-Dependent miR-182 and QR2 Expression Regulation in the Anterior Insula Enables Novel Taste Learning, published on March 26, 2020, in eNeuro and authored by Nathaniel L. Gould, Alina Elkobi, Efrat Edry, Jonathan Daume, and Kobi Rosenblum.

Highlights

• QR2 is involved across species in the important process of forming new memories of unfamiliar tastes, enabling animals to learn about safe or harmful foodstuffs.

• It does so by being removed from the anterior insular cortex (aIC), via the destabilization of its mRNA by miR­182, which is itself dependent on local disinhibition of acetylcholine (ACh) release.

• Removal of QR2 in the aIC reduces reactive oxygen species (ROS) there, affecting the potassium channel Kv2.1, which results in a stable long-term memory of a newly experienced taste, a process that deteriorates with age and disease.

About the Contributor

Nathaniel Gould, PhD Candidate

Nathaniel Gould is a PhD candidate at the laboratory of professor Kobi Rosenblum at the University of Haifa, having completed his BSc in molecular biology at the University of Bath.