Sodium Hunger The Search for a Salty Taste [Hardcover]

A wide-ranging review of sodium hunger and its physiological and neural basis.A concise review of the behavioral aspects of the hunger for sodium, and the hormonal and neural systems which underlie the search for and ingestion of salt, intended for graduate students and research workers in psychology, physiology and neuroscience.A concise review of the behavioral aspects of the hunger for sodium, and the hormonal and neural systems which underlie the search for and ingestion of salt, intended for graduate students and research workers in psychology, physiology and neuroscience.The phenomenon of sodium hunger was discovered by Curt Richter, the great American psychobiologist, over fifty years ago, and has since been the source of intense study by naturalists, psychologists, endocrinologists, physiologists, and neuroscientists. In this account, Professor Schulkin uses hunger for sodium as a model system in which to study how the brain produces motivated behavior. He offers a systematic account of the behavior of the sodium hungry animal and explores the endocrinological and physiological mechanisms that maintain sodium balance and then act on the brain to promote the search for and the ingestion of salt. Finally, the book provides a description of a neural network that orchestrates the behavior of salt seeking and salt ingestion.Introduction; Salt seeking behaviour; Hormonal regulation of salt intake; Gustatory contribution to salt intake; Physiological factors in the control of salt intake; Neural circuits underlying salt intake; Conclusion; Appendix; References; Index. ...a good introduction to the topic and a handy, up-to-date review. It will be useful for students interested in learning about the psychophysiology of motivation and for researchers looking for a highly palatable update on the behavioral search for the taste of salt. M. Ian Phillips, Science This well-written, concise book is an excellent treatise on the behavioral regulation of body sodium homeol!