2024 Author: Jasmine Walkman | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 08:29
The results of a new study show that in addition to the brain, our taste and smell are also related to the surface of the tongue.
Scientists have long concluded that humans perceive tastes through their brains. In fact, when we swallow or see a food, our tongues and noses recognize its taste and send signals to our brains. These signals are processed and information is extracted that shows us what we are eating.
Recently, in a new study conducted in Philadelphia, scientists concluded that it is possible to process taste and smell first from the tongue.
The idea for the study came from the team leader's 12-year-old son, Dr. Mehmet Ozdener, a cell biologist at the Monel Center for Chemical Research in the Senses in Philadelphia.
The little boy asked his father, Dr. Ozdener, if the snakes stuck their tongues so far because they wanted to smell the environment around them.
In fact, the child is right. Snakes actually use their tongues to detect odors. Through it, they capture their molecules and send them to the so-called Jacobson's organ - a special organ that is located in their palate. This organ is found in amphibians, mammals and some reptiles. It is an additional peripheral paired olfactory organ. The Jacobson organ allows snakes to they also smell odors through the tongue not just through your nose.
As for humans, taste and smell are separate sensory systems, the information from which is combined and processed in the brain.
I'm not saying that if you open your mouth, you'll smell something. Our study would help explain how odor molecules shape our taste perceptions. This can help create odor-based flavor enhancers to help combat the excessive use of salt, sugar and fat associated with diseases such as obesity and diabetes,”says Dr. Ozdener.
For their research, the team used human taste buds that were grown in artificial laboratory conditions. Like natural ones, they contain special molecules that are located in the olfactory cells in our nostrils and recognize odors.
The researchers used the well-known scientific method of "calcium recognition", which tested how the cultured cells reacted to different odors. They found that when exposed to odors, they reacted as olfactory.
The team is the first to show how human taste buds can perceive odors. This means that it is possible for the olfactory and gustatory receptors located on the tongue to cooperate in capturing odors.
The conclusion of the study is confirmed by the subsequent tests of scientists from the Monel Center.
"The presence of olfactory and gustatory receptors in the same cell allows us to explore the relationship between smell and taste in the mouth," said the study's author.
The researchers say they are only in the early stages of their study. They plan to examine whether olfactory receptors are located in all taste cells or only in a certain part of them and what effects odors have on the taste that is perceived by taste receptors.
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