Taste receptors

All people have different tastes. One starts to wince at the smell of a little burnt meat, and the other eats a pepper pod or drinks a sugary wine with pleasure. In the course of his development, man has learned to distinguish four types of taste: salty, bitter, sweet and sour. Sensitive cells (that is, taste buds) perceive taste. They are in special bulbs, located in the papillae of the tongue.

There are 4 types of taste receptors. They differ from each other in localization and form:

- flute (located on the front of the tongue);
- mushroom-shaped (on the tip);
- leaf-shaped (located on the lateral surface);
- filamentary (they only perceive mechanical influence and temperature, and also give a sensation of caustic, astringent, astringent taste).

Some species of animals (horses, dogs, pigs) are endowed with the ability to taste ordinary water. People, unlike them, can only perceive the taste of impurities and various chemical compounds contained in the liquid. Taste receptors exist for a short time - about ten days. Then they die and new ones are formed. This process is invisible to humans and continuous.

Different parts of the surface of the tongue have a different sensitivity to substances. The root is sensitive to bitter, the tip to sweet, the edges to salty. At the same time, the taste of most acidic and bitter substances is felt by man almost equally.

How is the sense of taste formed? First, the substance enters the tongue. Then a touch arises, and then the person begins to feel the taste. Certain substances can enhance the sensations that process taste buds. For example, the taste of quality wine intensifies after cheese, and after sweet it can seem very sour. The sensible taste will depend on the chemical processes that have been triggered in the language, as well as on the perception of a particular taste in the mind. For example, the taste of menthol can be explained by thermal sensations (local cooling takes place due to evaporation), and acute, astringent, burning, astringent, mealy - tactile reaction. If you hold your breath and clamp your nose, the taste may change to a large extent: the onion becomes sweet as an apple. If the ice for a minute to cool the tongue, then the taste buds will not feel sweet. This experience can be carried out with sugar.

Unfortunately, sometimes the language receptors responsible for the taste fail. There may be increased sensitivity - hypergeusia (at the same time, eating any food becomes impossible), decreased hypogeousia and avgezia, which means a complete lack of taste. All these conditions can develop with inflammation of the tongue (glossitis). It can lead to the fact that the taste buds will stop functioning properly. Also, a change in perception is observed with certain diseases of the digestive system (salty seems sweet). It can be diabetes, gastritis, inflammation of the gallbladder.

Through the taste buds it is possible to exert a therapeutic (therapeutic) effect on a person. Garlic oil can destroy microbes in the body, reduces cholesterol and blood pressure; Juniper oil performs antiseptic and diuretic function, helps to normalize metabolic processes, and also increases the elasticity of the walls of blood vessels; Lavender has a sugar-reducing, anti-inflammatory and antispasmodic effect, and rosemary dissolves stones in the kidneys and reduces cholesterol. Taste receptors play a huge role in human life. The signal coming from them, regulates quantitatively and qualitatively the secretion of the stomach. In addition, taste is one of the greatest joys of everyday life.