Data from: A brainstem circuit integrating reflexive and anticipatory salivation

Salivation supports oral health, taste sensation, swallowing, and
digestion, yet the brain mechanisms that control it remain largely
unknown. Here, we identify a salivatory center in the mouse brainstem that
integrates sensory and learned anticipatory signals to control salivation.
We show that activating choline acetyltransferase-expressing neurons in
the inferior salivatory nucleus (IS) is sufficient to trigger saliva
secretion. Using fiber photometry, we monitor real-time IS neural
responses to mechanosensory and gustatory stimulation and find tight
correlation with salivatory output. We further demonstrate that IS neurons
receive input from local brainstem circuits, mediating rapid hardwired
responses to taste, as well as direct cortical projections. Notably,
gustatory cortex input is required for salivatory responses to predictive
sensory cues in a Pavlovian conditioning paradigm. Together, our findings
define the circuit underlying taste-evoked and anticipatory salivation and
provide a foundation for dissecting this autonomic response in health and
disease.