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The tongue is a muscular organ in the mouth of most vertebrates that manipulates food for mastication and is used in the act of swallowing. It has importance in the digestive system and is the primary organ of taste in the gustatory system. The tongue's upper surface (dorsum) is covered by taste buds housed in numerous lingual papillae. It is sensitive and kept moist by saliva and is richly supplied with nerves and blood vessels. The tongue also serves as a natural means of cleaning the teeth. A major function of the tongue is the enabling of speech in humans and vocalization in other animals.
Umami or savoriness is one of the five basic tastes. It has been described as savory and is characteristic of broths and cooked meats.
Taste buds contain the taste receptor cells, which are also known as gustatory cells. The taste receptors are located around the small structures known as papillae found on the upper surface of the tongue, soft palate, upper esophagus, the cheek, and epiglottis. These structures are involved in detecting the five elements of taste perception: salty, sour, bitter, sweet and umami. A popular myth assigns these different tastes to different regions of the tongue; in reality these tastes can be detected by any area of the tongue. Via small openings in the tongue epithelium, called taste pores, parts of the food dissolved in saliva come into contact with the taste receptors. These are located on top of the taste receptor cells that constitute the taste buds. The taste receptor cells send information detected by clusters of various receptors and ion channels to the gustatory areas of the brain via the seventh, ninth and tenth cranial nerves.
A supertaster is a person who experiences the sense of taste with far greater intensity than average, with some studies showing an increased sensitivity to bitter tastes. It may be a cause of selective eating.
Aftertaste is the taste intensity of a food or beverage that is perceived immediately after that food or beverage is removed from the mouth. The aftertastes of different foods and beverages can vary by intensity and over time, but the unifying feature of aftertaste is that it is perceived after a food or beverage is either swallowed or spat out. The neurobiological mechanisms of taste signal transduction from the taste receptors in the mouth to the brain have not yet been fully understood. However, the primary taste processing area located in the insula has been observed to be involved in aftertaste perception.
The chorda tympani is a branch of the facial nerve that originates from the taste buds in the front of the tongue, runs through the middle ear, and carries taste messages to the brain. It joins the facial nerve inside the facial canal, at the level where the facial nerve exits the skull via the stylomastoid foramen, but exits through a different route.
In medicine and anatomy, the special senses are the senses that have specialized organs devoted to them:
The Monell Chemical Senses Center is a non-profit independent scientific institute located at the University City Science Center campus in Philadelphia, in Pennsylvania. Monell conducts and publishes interdisciplinary basic research on taste, smell, and chemesthesis.
The electronic tongue is an instrument that measures and compares tastes.
Chemesthesis is the chemical sensitivity of the skin and mucous membranes. Chemesthetic sensations arise when chemical compounds activate receptors associated with other senses that mediate pain, touch, and thermal perception. These chemical-induced reactions do not fit into the traditional sense categories of taste and smell.
A taste receptor is a type of receptor which facilitates the sensation of taste. When food or other substances enter the mouth, molecules interact with saliva and are bound to taste receptors in the oral cavity and other locations. Molecules which give a sensation of taste are considered "sapid".
Taste receptor 2 member 38 is a protein that in humans is encoded by the TAS2R38 gene. TAS2R38 is a bitter taste receptor; varying genotypes of TAS2R38 influence the ability to taste both 6-n-propylthiouracil (PROP) and phenylthiocarbamide (PTC). Though it has often been proposed that varying taste receptor genotypes could influence tasting ability, TAS2R38 is one of the only taste receptors shown to have this function.
Gustducin is a G protein associated with taste and the gustatory system, found in some taste receptor cells. Research on the discovery and isolation of gustaducin is recent. It is known to play a large role in the transduction of bitter, sweet and umami stimuli. Its pathways are many and diverse.
Dr. Gary K. Beauchamp was the director and president of the Monell Chemical Senses Center from August 1990 to September 2014.
Taste receptor type 1 member 2 is a protein that in humans is encoded by the TAS1R2 gene.
Taste receptor type 1 member 3 is a protein that in humans is encoded by the TAS1R3 gene. The TAS1R3 gene encodes the human homolog of mouse Sac taste receptor, a major determinant of differences between sweet-sensitive and -insensitive mouse strains in their responsiveness to sucrose, saccharin, and other sweeteners.
Solitary chemosensory cells (SCCs) are isolated elements located in epithelia of the apparatuses of endodermic origin. In the aquatic vertebrates, SCCs are also present in the skin. In oral cavity, SCCs precedes the development of taste buds. For long time, SCCs were considered to be typical of aquatic vertebrates. Recently, these elements were also demonstrated in mammals.
The gustatory system or sense of taste is the sensory system that is partially responsible for the perception of taste (flavor). Taste is the perception produced or stimulated when a substance in the mouth reacts chemically with taste receptor cells located on taste buds in the oral cavity, mostly on the tongue. Taste, along with smell (olfaction) and trigeminal nerve stimulation, determines flavors of food and other substances. Humans have taste receptors on taste buds and other areas including the upper surface of the tongue and the epiglottis. The gustatory cortex is responsible for the perception of taste.
Sensation is the physical process during which sensory systems respond to stimuli and provide data for perception. A sense is any of the systems involved in sensation. During sensation, sense organs engage in stimulus collection and transduction. Sensation is often differentiated from the related and dependent concept of perception, which processes and integrates sensory information in order to give meaning to and understand detected stimuli, giving rise to subjective perceptual experience, or qualia. Sensation and perception are central to and precede almost all aspects of cognition, behavior and thought.
Lingual papillae are the small, nipple-like structures on the upper surface of the tongue that give it its characteristic rough texture. The four types of papillae on the human tongue have different structures and are accordingly classified as circumvallate, fungiform, filiform, and foliate. All except the filiform papillae are associated with taste buds.
References
- ↑ "Masking Bitter Taste of Pharmaceutical Actives". S2CID 42499233.Cite journal requires
|journal=(help) - ↑ "Masking Bitter Taste by Molecules" (PDF). Springer.
- ↑ Huang, Liquan; Breslin, Paul A. S.; Breslin. "Human Taste: Peripheral Anatomy, TasteTransduction, and Coding". Advances in Oto-Rhino-Laryngology: 152–190.