Physiology of Gustation

- Dr. Chintan

Sense of Taste- Smell and taste are generally classified as visceral senses

because of their close association with gastrointestinal function.

- Physiologically, they are related to each other. The flavors of various foods are in large part a combination of their taste and smell - food may taste "different" if one has a cold that depresses the sense of smell.

- Both taste and smell receptors are chemoreceptors - stimulated by molecules in solution in mucus in the nose and saliva in the mouth.

Sense of Taste- anatomically quite different - The smell receptors are

distance receptors (teleceptors), and the smell pathways have no relay in the thalamus.

- The taste pathways pass up the brain stem to the thalamus and project to the postcentral gyrus along with those for touch and pressure sensibility from the mouth.

- The senses of taste and smell allow us to separate undesirable or even lethal foods from those that are pleasant to eat and nutritious

Sense of Taste- Taste is mainly a function of the taste buds in the mouth,

but it is common experience that one’s sense of smell also contributes strongly to taste perception.

- In addition, the texture of food, as detected by tactual senses of the mouth, and the presence of substances in the food that stimulate pain endings, such as pepper, greatly alter the taste experience.

- The importance of taste lies in the fact that it allows a person to select food in accord with desires and often in accord with the body tissues’ metabolic need for specific substances

Primary Sensations- 13 possible chemical receptors in the taste cells

- 2 sodium receptors, - 2 potassium receptors, - 1 chloride receptor,- 1 adenosine receptor, - 1 inosine receptor, - 2 sweet receptors, - 2 bitter receptors,- 1 glutamate receptor, - 1 hydrogen ion receptor

- sour, salty, sweet, bitter and “umami”

Primary Sensations- Sour Taste: The sour taste is caused by acids, that is, by the

hydrogen ion concentration, and the intensity of this taste sensation is approximately proportional to the logarithm of the hydrogen ion concentration.

- The more acidic the food, the stronger the sour sensation becomes.

- Salty Taste: The salty taste is elicited by ionized salts, mainly by the sodium ion concentration.

- The cations of the salts, especially sodium cations, are mainly responsible for the salty taste, but the anions also contribute to a lesser extent.

Primary Sensations- Sweet Taste: The sweet taste is not caused by any single

class of chemicals - organic chemicals

- sugars, glycols, alcohols, aldehydes, ketones, amides, esters, some amino acids, some small proteins, sulfonic acids, halogenated acids, and inorganic salts of lead and beryllium.

- Bitter Taste: organic substances.- (1) long-chain organic substances that contain nitrogen,- (2) alkaloids - quinine, caffeine, strychnine, and nicotine.

- The bitter taste, when it occurs in high intensity, usually causes the person or animal to reject the food - toxins

Primary Sensations- Umami Taste: Umami is a Japanese word (meaning

“delicious”) designating a pleasant taste sensation that is qualitatively different from sour, salty, sweet or bitter.

- Umami is the dominant taste of food containing L-glutamate, such as meat extracts and aging cheese

- The threshold for stimulation of the bitter taste is lowest

- this sensation provides an important protective function against many dangerous toxins in food

- Should we really take bitter medicines ???

Taste Buds- The taste bud is composed of about 50 modified

epithelial cells, some of which are supporting cells called sustentacular cells and others of which are taste cells.

- The taste cells are continually being replaced by mitotic division of surrounding epithelial cells.

- The outer tips of the taste cells are arranged around a minute taste pore.

Taste Buds- From the tip of each taste cell, several microvilli,

or taste hairs, protrude outward into the taste pore to approach the cavity of the mouth.

- Interwoven around the bodies of the taste cells is a branching terminal network of taste nerve fibers that are stimulated by the taste receptor cells

- Each taste bud is innervated by about 50 nerve fibers,

- Each nerve fiber receives input from five taste buds.

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Location - Taste Buds- (1) A large number of taste buds surround the

circumvallate papillae, which form a V line on the surface of the posterior tongue.

- (2) Moderate numbers of taste buds are on the fungiform papillae over the flat anterior surface of the tongue.

- (3) Moderate numbers are on the foliate papillae located along the lateral surfaces of the tongue.

- Additional taste buds are located on the palate, and a few are found on the tonsillar pillars, on the epiglottis, and even in the proximal esophagus.

Location - Taste Buds- Adults have 3000 to 10,000 taste buds, and children have a

few more.

- Beyond the age of 45 years, many taste buds degenerate, causing the taste sensation to become progressively decreased in old age.

- single taste buds show that each taste bud usually responds mostly to one of the five primary taste stimuli when the taste substance is in low concentration.

- But at high concentration, most buds can be excited by two or more of the primary taste stimuli

Circumvallate

Foliate

Filliform

Fungiform

Mechanism of Stimulation

- The membrane of the taste cell, like that of most other sensory receptor cells, is negatively charged on the inside with respect to the outside.

- Application of a taste substance to the taste hairs causes partial loss of this negative potential — that is, the taste cell becomes depolarized.

- proportional to concentration of the stimulating substance

Mechanism of Stimulation

- binding of the taste chemical to a protein receptor molecule that lies on the outer surface of the taste receptor cell near to or protruding through a villus membrane

- opens ion channels, which allows positively charged sodium ions or hydrogen ions to enter and depolarize the normal negativity of the cell

- Then the taste chemical itself is gradually washed away from the taste villus by the saliva, which removes the stimulus.

Mechanism of Stimulation

- For sodium ions and hydrogen ions, which elicit salty and sour taste sensations, respectively, the receptor proteins open specific ion channels in the apical membranes of the taste cells, thereby activating the receptors.

- for the sweet and bitter taste sensations, the portions of the receptor protein molecules that protrude through the apical membranes activate second-messenger transmitter substances inside the taste cells, and these second messengers cause intracellular chemical changes that elicit the taste signals

Generation of Nerve Impulses

- On first application of the taste stimulus, the rate of discharge of the nerve fibers from taste buds rises to a peak in a small fraction of a second

- then adapts within the next few seconds back to a lower, steady level as long as the taste stimulus remains.

- Thus, a strong immediate signal is transmitted by the taste nerve, and a weaker continuous signal is transmitted as long as the taste bud is exposed to the taste stimulus.

Taste pathways- Taste impulses from the anterior 2/3rd of the

tongue pass first into the lingual nerve - chorda tympani - facial nerve - tractus solitarius in the brain stem

- Posterior 1/3rd of the tongue – glossopharyngeal nerve - tractus solitarius - slightly more posterior level

- Posterior most, pharynx – vagus nerve - tractus solitarius

Tactile and temperature sensation Trigeminal nerve

Taste pathways- nuclei of the tractus solitarius – 2nd order neurons - the

ventral posterior medial nucleus of the thalamus – 3rd order neurons - lower tip of the postcentral gyrus in the parietal cerebral cortex

- From the tractus solitarius, many taste signals are transmitted within the brain stem itself directly into the superior and inferior salivatory nuclei

- these areas transmit signals to the submandibular, sublingual, and parotid glands to help control the secretion of saliva during the ingestion and digestion of food

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Taste Preference - CNS- adrenalectomized, salt-depleted animals automatically

select drinking water with a high concentration of NaCl in preference to pure water.

- an animal given injections of excessive amounts of insulin develops a depleted blood sugar, and the animal automatically chooses the sweetest food from among many samples.

- Ca depleted parathyroidectomized animals automatically choose drinking water with a high concentration of CaCl.

- taste aversion

Factors influencing taste sensation- 1) Area of stimulation - threshold for taste decreases as

area of application of stimulus increases

- 2) Temperature of substance - maximum sensitivity to taste is obtained at 30 - 40 degree C

- 3) Olfaction – as it affects flavor

- 4) Individual variation - decrease in taste sensitivity in older people due to atrophy of taste buds

Factors influencing taste sensation

- 5) Sex - women are more sensitive to sweet and salt and less sensitive to sour than men

- 6) Adaptation - taste buds adapt quickly to a particular taste

- 7) Interaction between taste producing substances affect taste sensation.

- For e.g. very sour lemon juice tastes good when mixed with sweet sugar

Affective nature of taste- Pleasantness and unpleasantness are called

affective attributes of a sensation. These make an individual select or reject food.

- For e.g.,- sweet is unpleasant at very low conc but very

pleasant at high conc - sour and bitter are pleasant at low conc but

very unpleasant at high conc.

Taste applied1) Ageusia- absence of taste sensation- congenital or due to lesion of facial or glossopharyngeal nerve.

2) Hypogeusia- diminished taste sensation due to some diseases.

3) Dysgeusia- altered taste sensation. It is usually associated with temporal lobe syndrome

4) Familial dysautonomia- a very rare condition where a very high conc of glucose fails to produce sweet sensation.

5) Selective taste blindness- inherited Mendelian recessive trait. They have a very high increase in threshold to bitter taste but all other taste sensations are normal to them.

Causes- Miscellaneous Causes- Aging (difficulty detecting salty or bitter taste)- Anxiety Disorder- Cancer- Renal Failure- Hepatic failure

- Endocrine Disorders- Cushing's Syndrome- Hypothyroidism- Diabetes Mellitus

- Deficiency- Vitamin B3 Deficiency- Zinc Deficiency

- Local injury or inflammation

Radiation Therapy

Glossitis

Tobacco abuse

Denture use

- Medications

Antirheumatic Drugs (e.g. Penicillamine)

Antiproliferative drugs (e.g. Cisplatin)

ACE Inhibitors

Clarithromycin

Zopiclone

- Neurologic conditions

Bell's Palsy

Familial Dysautonomia

Multiple Sclerosis

Recent- Saccharin is 600 times as sweet as

sucrose

- Miraculin - taste modifying protein obtained from miracle fruit in Africa.

- After eating this fruit sour substance taste sweet. For eg lemon tastes like orange

Thank you…