That Map of the Tongue You Learned in School? Totally Incorrect, According to Science (2024)
The way to someone’s heart may be through their stomach. But it also may be through their tongue, pancreas, fat cells, and thyroid. Alluring, right?
A new review published in the New England Journal of Medicine reassesses how human tongues and tastebuds work, concluding that much of what we know about taste mapping is incorrect, and there’s still much to discover about how tongues function.
That map of the tongue you may have learned in school? Incorrect. While the tongue was previously thought to have different areas that pick up more strongly on different tastes — sweet, sour, salty, bitter — it’s merely a myth. One that’s been disproven for decades, but still, somehow persists in human collective knowledge?
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While the tip of the tongue is said to pick up on sweet flavors, you can lick a pretzel and taste salt or lick a lemon and taste sour. The tongue diagram that originated in 1901 is far from accurate and there’s so much more to how humans perceive what goes in our mouths. The tip of the tongue is dense with sweet receptors, but can certainly taste other flavors as well.
Recent research by Dr. Josephine M. Egan, M.D., shows that taste receptors extend far beyond the mouth. In fact, in her review titled “Physiological Integration of Taste and Metabolism,” she proves that taste receptors are active far beyond the tongue and exist throughout the body: in the gastrointestinal tract, liver, pancreas, fat cells, brain, muscle cells, thyroid, and lungs. It’s a complex system that can connect to cravings, digestion, nutritional intake, and more.
Taste is also unique to preference. While evolutionarily taste can guide us away from certain flavors, in contemporary times, taste is often linked to preference and culture.
“Our sense of taste is essential not only for experiencing pleasure when we eat but also to help guide us in choosing foods that are safe and won’t harm us,” explains oncology dietitian Meghan Garrity, MS, RDN, CSO. “For instance, humans have evolved to be drawn towards sweeter flavors because sweeter foods tend to be safe and provide calories and nutrients, whereas bitter flavors are less favorable because they were associated with bad or poisonous foods.”
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Western diets, typically high in fat and carbohydrates, can change the tongue’s landscape, and research shows that diabetic mice and their offspring show an increased preference for sweet tastes. This preference can be linked to the taste receptors on the mice’s tongue, as well as their brain, gut, and beyond.
“Current observations suggest that obesity is related to disruptions in the neural pathways that encourage reward-related eating and suppress homeostatic feedback that curbs hunger, although we have yet to fully elucidate the precise physiological mechanisms,” Dr. Egan writes. “However, a direct connection between obesity and taste perception in humans is not proven.” Some studies show that those with a propensity for obesity have higher sweetness thresholds, while other studies can’t find a link between obesity and taste.
There’s still plenty more to understand about taste, but further research can help with medical comprehension and management of illnesses, including obesity and diabetes. For example, if researchers are able to find a taste receptor for fat, that may help cure nutrition-related diseases.
“Research is revealing that our taste receptor cells are much more complex than previously thought. Taste receptors are highly integrated with our central nervous system which directly impacts hormone production. These hormones affect the part of our brain that causes us to feel full or satiated,” says Garrity. “This is important because it can help guide healthcare providers when making recommendations about diet for purposes of weight management. In addition, research has shown us that what we eat on a regular basis actually changes our taste perceptions. By eating a diet that is high in fat and sugar, we will find these foods more palatable. In understanding this, healthcare providers can help support those individuals who are trying to acquire a taste for more nutritious foods.”
This aligns with Dr. Egan’s conclusion that ongoing research can help update dietary guidelines and clinical practice guidelines for what foods make up an ideal diet, and how taste can guide us to better overall health.
You taste with your whole tongue. If the tongue map were correct, one would expect sweet receptors to be localized to the front of the tongue and bitter receptors restricted to the back. But this is not the case. Rather, each receptor type is found across all taste areas in the mouth.
The tongue is wired separately between motor function (how it moves) and sensory function (what it feels and tastes). All except one of the muscles of the tongue are innervated by the hypoglossal nerve, the 12th cranial nerve.
Certain areas of the tongue are more sensitive to certain tastes, like bitter at the back of the tongue, sour along either side toward the back, sweet on the front surface, or salty around the front edge.
Sweet, sour, salty, bitter and savory tastes can actually be sensed by all parts of the tongue. Only the sides of the tongue are more sensitive than the middle overall. This is true of all tastes – with one exception: the back of our tongue is very sensitive to bitter tastes.
Our bodies detect spice using a completely different system than the one for taste. The trigeminal nerve, which is the part of the nervous system that sends touch, pain, and temperature feelings from your face to your brain, interprets it. In this way, spicy isn't a taste so much as it is a reaction.
noun. a movable mass of muscular tissue attached to the floor of the mouth in most vertebrates. It is the organ of taste and aids the mastication and swallowing of food. In man it plays an important part in the articulation of speech sounds glotticlingual. an analogous organ in invertebrates.
Most people exhibiting glossolalia do not have a neuropsychiatric disorder. Neuroimaging of brain activity during glossolalia does not show activity in the language areas of the brain. In other words, it may be characterized by a specific brain activity and it can be a learned behaviour.
Your saliva (spit) naturally contains a small amount of salt. But when you're not well hydrated, the salt in your saliva becomes more concentrated. Imagine a sprinkle of salt in a glass of water versus that same amount of salt in a teaspoon of water.
A salty taste can have several causes, from dry mouth to infection to a head injury. While this may only be a minor inconvenience, it may also indicate a more serious condition that needs medical attention.
Dehydration. Dehydration can lead to an odd taste and other symptoms, such as dry mouth. When a person is dehydrated, there is an imbalance in the levels of salt and water in their body. This makes the saliva rich in salty minerals.
Our tastebuds die and grow back about every two weeks. Around 40 years of age, this process slows down, so while the buds continue to die off, fewer grow back. Fewer taste buds means blander taste, and a different combination of activated cells when we experience a food.
Sometimes, you can reverse a complete loss of taste by changing your daily habits. For example, people who quit smoking can regain their sense of taste in as little as 48 hours. If your ageusia is related to gum disease, ramping up your oral hygiene rituals can help restore your taste function quickly.
Human taste can be distilled down to the basic 5 taste qualities of sweet, sour, bitter, salty and umami or savory. Although the sense of taste has been viewed as a nutritional quality control mechanism, the human experience of ingesting food is the interaction of all 5 senses.
“The spicy hot sensation you get from a chili pepper is actually a pain sensation… this follows activation of pain-related fibers that innervate the tongue and are heat sensitive,” said Christian H.
The taste bud contains taste receptor cells, which act as chemical sensitizers. The front part of the tongue is sensitive to sweet taste, the backside is a bitter taste, and the side part is sensitive to salty and sour taste.
Pungency (/ˈpʌndʒənsi/) refers to the taste of food commonly referred to as spiciness, hotness or heat, found in foods such as chili peppers. Highly pungent tastes may be experienced as unpleasant.
The epiglottis is a flap of tissue that sits beneath the tongue at the back of the throat. Its main function is to close over the windpipe (trachea) while you're eating to prevent food entering your airway.
The tongue is the only muscle in the body that works without the support from a skeleton, but it isn't the strongest muscle in the body. However, it is one of the most sensitive parts of the body, as it contains all the taste buds we need and most definitely want.
When we sleep, our digestive system remains awake, removing toxins from our body by depositing them onto the surface of our tongue. If we don't scrape away these toxins, they get reabsorbed by the body and can lead to respiratory difficulties, digestive problems, and a compromised immune system.
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Introduction: My name is Virgilio Hermann JD, I am a fine, gifted, beautiful, encouraging, kind, talented, zealous person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.
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