‘Disgusted’ Rats Teaching Scientists About Nausea, Work May Lead to New Cancer Treatments

Nausea is a common and distressing side effect of many drugs and treatments. Unlike vomiting, nausea is not well understood, but new research by University of Guelph scientists may soon change that.

Guelph PhD student Katharine Tuerke, neuroscience researcher Cheryl Limebeer and Prof. Linda Parker in the Department of Psychology believe they’ve found the mechanism in the brain that is responsible for the sensation of nausea – with the help of some “disgusted” rats.

Their study was published this week in Journal of Neuroscience.

“Although everyone has experienced nausea at some point, its neurobiology is poorly understood due to a lack of animal models,” said Parker, who holds the Canada Research Chair in Behavioural Neuroscience.

“We know about vomiting. The vomiting reflex is very well characterized, but the experience of nausea is something that little is known about. How is it generated? Where is it generated?”

Although rats can’t vomit, they do display a disgust reaction called gaping when re-exposed to a taste that made them feel nauseous in the past. Therefore, these gaping reactions in rats provide a model to understand brain mechanisms that produce nausea in humans.