Mechanisms of Nausea and Interoception
Department of Physiology, University of California, Los Angeles
Nausea is a visceral sensation of malaise that can be evoked by a dizzying array of poisons, pathogens, and diseases. The sensory neuroscience of nausea remains poorly understood despite its clinical importance. Which neurons evoke nausea? What are the relevant signaling cues? What’s the relationship between nausea, satiety, and hunger? Our lab studies internal sensations with a unique focus on the neural mechanisms of nausea.
Our previous work
The area postrema is a brain structure that mediates nausea responses to several visceral threats. It occupies a unique anatomical location outside the blood-brain-barrier and is thus capable of detecting humoral factors. In addition, area postrema receives inputs from the digestive tract through the vagus nerve, a key body-brain connection. We have uncovered fundamental aspects of the area postrema, including cell types, receptors, and nausea-related neural circuits.
Our future work
We still know very little about nausea and interoception. For example, how do harmful toxins and pathogens stimulate the nausea neural pathways? What about morning sickness during pregnancy? What about nausea during radiation exposure, migraine headaches and many other conditions? Our goal is to understand the general principle of nausea sensing at the molecular and circuit level. Ultimately, this work may lead to novel therapeutic strategies for clinical intervention.
Nausea is tricky to study. Our unique approach combines mouse genetics and a small animal model capable of vomiting to reveal the basic mechanisms as well as clinical relevance.