Patients with gustatory disorders often complain of persistent impairment of umami taste, a synonym for savory or broth-like flavor, even after the recovery of the other four basic taste sensations (sweet, salty, sour, and bitter). Umami taste is important for maintaining not only the quality of life but also good health, and therefore, it seems important to assess and treat the impairment of u...

Taste perception is an important component of an animal's fitness. The identification of vertebrate taste receptor genes in the last decade has enabled molecular genetic studies of the evolution of taste perception in the context of the ecology and dietary preferences of organisms. Although such analyses have been conducted in a number of species for bitter taste receptors, a similar analysis o...

Sensory characteristics of Thai fish sauces is one of the most important factors of consumer perception. This study aims to characterize sensory properties of Thai fish sauces, and to categorize Thai fish sauces based on the sensory properties. Twenty samples composing of 12 commercial Thai fish sauces (P) and 8 commercial Thai mixed fish sauces (M) were collected. Generic descriptive quantitat...

The primary gustatory area is located in the insular cortex. Although the insular cortex has been the topic of multiple parcellation studies, its functional specialization regarding taste processing received relatively little attention. Studies investigating the brain response to taste suggested that the insular cortex is involved in processing multiple characteristics of a taste stimulus, such...

In recent years, people have tended to pay less attention to their meals, often consuming them while engaging in other activities. At the same time, foods have become increasingly sweet and salty. We therefore investigated how performing concurrent activities affects taste perception and how this relates to actual consumption. Participants tasted sour, sweet, and salty substances in various con...

The G-protein-coupled receptor molecules and downstream effectors that are used by taste buds to detect sweet, bitter, and savory tastes are also utilized by chemoresponsive cells of the airways to detect irritants. Here, we describe the different cell types in the airways that utilize taste-receptor signaling to trigger protective epithelial and neural responses to potentially dangerous toxins...

Generalization of a conditioned taste aversion in infant rats and how this is affected by stimulus preexposure was investigated in a series of experiments. In Experiment 1 generalization of a conditioned aversion between two tastes (sweet and salty) was found, and the effect of tastes preexposure was a reduction in generalization (Experiment 2). However, when these tastes were combined with a c...

It has been postulated for decades that ion channels serve as receptors for most sour tasting stimuli. Though many candidates exist, definitive evidence linking any particular channel to sour taste perception has been elusive. Several studies have suggested that two members of the polycystic kidney disease-like family may function as components of an ionotropic taste receptor mediating the tran...

In this study, the representation of taste in the orbitofrontal cortex was investigated to determine whether or not a pleasant and an aversive taste have distinct or overlapping representations in this region. The pleasant stimulus used was sweet taste (1 M glucose), and the unpleasant stimulus was salt taste (0.1 M NaCl). We used an ON/OFF block design in a 3T fMRI scanner with a tasteless sol...