ArticleNature2013
High salt recruits aversive taste pathways.
Article in Nature, 2013. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 178 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
178 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 368 citations in OpenAlex.
- A Systematic Review of Salt Taste Function and Perception Impairments in Adults with Chronic Kidney Disease.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022Pooled it
- The Sodium Priority Hypothesis: A Conceptual Taste-Nutrition Framework Linking Salt Taste, Umami and Food Acceptance.Nutrients · 2026Review
- Article
- Ingredients to Mask the Aversive Taste of Medicines: Lessons from the Pharmaceutical and Food Industries and Home Remedies Adopted by Caregivers.Foods (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- TMC4 localizes to multiple taste cell types in the mouse taste papillae.FEBS open bio · 2026Article
- Accumulation of prosaposin and progranulin around the subfornical organ induces polydipsia in SAP-D-deficient mice.Biochemistry and biophysics reports · 2026Article
- Activity and State-Dependent Modulation of Salt Taste Behavior Via Pharyngeal Neurons inNeuroscience insights · 2026Article
- Flexible value coding in the mesolimbic dopamine system depending on internal water and sodium balance.NPJ science of food · 2025Article
- Article
- Dual functions of SNAP25 in mouse taste buds.The Journal of physiology · 2025Article
- The addition of sweetness reduces aversion to high salt concentrations in patients with chronic kidney disease.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Sodium Reduction Through Sensory Interactions With NaCl: Strategies and Underlying Mechanisms.Food science & nutrition · 2025Review
- The zinc receptor, ZnR/GPR39, modulates taste sensitivity by regulating ion secretion in mouse salivary gland.iScience · 2025Article
- Contributions and future potential of animal models for geroscience research on sensory systems.GeroScience · 2025Review
- Receptors and signaling for sour and salty: the ionic taste qualities.Chemical senses · 2025Review
- The neurobiology of thirst and salt appetite.Neuron · 2024Review
- Deciphering Peripheral Taste Neuron Diversity: Using Genetic Identity to Bridge Taste Bud Innervation Patterns and Functional Responses.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2024Article
- Recent advances in the characterization of genetically defined neurons that regulate internal-state-dependent taste modification in mice.Physiological reports · 2024Review
- TRPM3, TRPM4, and TRPM5 as thermo-sensitive channels.The journal of physiological sciences : JPS · 2024Review
- Molecular and cellular basis of sodium sensing iniScience · 2024Article
118 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors at 4 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
In the tongue, distinct classes of taste receptor cells detect the five basic tastes; sweet, sour, bitter, sodium salt and umami. Among these qualities, bitter and sour stimuli are innately aversive, whereas sweet and umami are appetitive and generally attractive to animals. By contrast, salty taste is unique in that increasing salt concentration fundamentally transforms an innately appetitive stimulus into a powerfully aversive one. This appetitive-aversive balance helps to maintain appropriate salt consumption, and represents an important part of fluid and electrolyte homeostasis. We have shown previously that the appetitive responses to NaCl are mediated by taste receptor cells expressing the epithelial sodium channel, ENaC, but the cellular substrate for salt aversion was unknown. Here we examine the cellular and molecular basis for the rejection of high concentrations of salts. We show that high salt recruits the two primary aversive taste pathways by activating the sour- and bitter-taste-sensing cells. We also demonstrate that genetic silencing of these pathways abolishes behavioural aversion to concentrated salt, without impairing salt attraction. Notably, mice devoid of salt-aversion pathways show unimpeded, continuous attraction even to very high concentrations of NaCl. We propose that the 'co-opting' of sour and bitter neural pathways evolved as a means to ensure that high levels of salt reliably trigger robust behavioural rejection, thus preventing its potentially detrimental effects on health.
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.