What part of the tongue perceives bitter. How do taste buds work? Not by themselves
The appearance of the language can tell a lot to an experienced specialist. But it turns out that you can independently determine the state of your health by language. And also find out: is it possible to be treated with taste, how and why to clean the tongue. This will require some specialized knowledge.
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By the state of your tongue, you can independently determine which organs are out of order. It leaves traces of various diseases. Outwardly, they appear on the tongue in different ways: this is plaque, and redness, and an increase in various zones, a curvature of the fold. Each zone of the tongue is associated with a specific organ.
What are the changes in the appearance of the language?
Let's talk about the most common symptoms and problems in the body that they can indicate. A crease, for example, speaks of the health of the spine.
- Curvature of the fold at the tip of the tongue indicates cervical osteochondrosis. Most likely, this is the result of long work with a computer or at a desk.
- Fold in the middle of the tongue- lumbar osteochondrosis, they usually suffer from professional drivers and people who spend a lot of time driving.
- Redness of the tip of the tongue- a sign of weak heart activity, incipient coronary disease. Diseases of the pulmonary system can be judged by changes at the edges of the tongue, closer to the tip. Smokers most often suffer from heart and lung diseases, therefore, such changes in the tongue are a serious reason to quit smoking.
- Tooth marks on the tongue- a sign of dysbacteriosis, slagging of the body. In this case, it is worth changing the diet, eating less fatty and fried foods. To tidy up the body, you can take different infusions of herbs.
- Trembling tongue- manifestation of neurotic syndrome. Here the advice is this: try to improve the psychological situation at home, at work, change your lifestyle.
- Cracks in the tongue- can talk about various diseases of the blood, endocrine system, kidney pathology. This is where it needs to be looked into the most seriously.
- Sign of failure in the body- Decreased taste sensations. There are zones on the tongue that are responsible for the reaction to sweet, sour, salty, bitter. If a person ceases to feel any of these tastes, then we can talk about diseases of the nervous, endocrine systems.
- swollen tongue, which looks larger and thicker than usual, can speak of inflammation of the tissues of the tongue itself, as well as swelling in the body.
- "Grainy" or "prickly", the tongue happens with an increase or thickening of the papillae. If thickened papillae, "grains", are localized at the tip of the tongue, you need to pay attention to the heart and be examined by a cardiologist; at the edges - worth checking; in the middle part, the stomach and intestines suffer.
- "Mirror" tongue happens when the surface of the tongue becomes smooth and shiny. This happens with anemia, exhaustion or severe stomach disease.
- Dry and rough surface of the tongue often occurs with allergies.
The color of sickness
A normal tongue looks soft and tender, its movements are not constrained, the color is pink, and the coating is normally thin, white and moderately moist. With certain diseases, the color of the tongue changes.
- Dark red tongue indicates probable pneumonia, severe acute infectious disease, high fever caused by infection, ischemia or poisoning.
- crimson tongue signals the same diseases as red, but in a more severe form.
- purple tint means that a serious infectious disease, disturbances in the work of the circulatory and respiratory system are possible.
- Thick white coating indicates food retention in the intestines, i.e.
- Yellow coating indicates severe digestive disorders. The more intense the color and the thicker the plaque, the more serious the disease and the likely constant accumulation of food in the stomach and intestines.
- Grayish coating speaks of chronic, imperceptibly occurring diseases of the stomach and intestines. It is also possible dehydration and violation of the acid-base balance in organs and tissues (increased acidity).
If you are a strong tea lover or a heavy smoker, relax! A dense, grayish or yellow coating on the tongue indicates, rather, not about diseases, but about bad habits. Some foods and medicines can also change the color of the tongue.
Taste sensations
Due to the fact that many taste buds are concentrated on the surface of the tongue, we know that cucumbers are salty, sugar is sweet, lemon is sour, and medicines are bitter. It turns out that the tongue is the first to make a critical assessment of the food that should enter our stomach.
At the same time, different areas of the tongue have unequal sensitivity to different taste substances. Usually, sweet recognizes the tip of the tongue, and bitter - the region of its root. The taste buds themselves are extremely fragile creatures and without saliva would have long since failed. And so saliva dissolves dry substances that enter the mouth, and excites the taste buds.
It also washes away the remnants of taste from the surface of the tongue, so that we can experience a number of successive taste sensations in a short period of time. But, most importantly, the protein in saliva has the ability to bind acids, protecting the mucous membrane of the mouth and the taste buds in it from their harmful effects.
It is regrettable, but not all of us are able to enjoy the taste. And this happens for a number of reasons. For example, due to frequent burns of the mucous membrane of the tongue, when we hastily throw too hot food into ourselves, or fill in a surrogate of unknown origin, causing a chemical burn.
A change in taste sensations or their loss can occur as a result of damage to the conduction pathways of the taste analyzer: for example, loss of taste in the anterior two-thirds of one half of the tongue is associated with damage to the lingual or facial nerve, in the region of the posterior third of the tongue - with damage to the glossopharyngeal nerve. That is why physicians disapprove of the child's early exposure to excessively peppered or spicy foods, the abuse of which can lead to perversion of taste sensations.
In some cases, taste perversion is caused by diseases of the internal organs or: a sensation of bitterness is noted in diseases of the gallbladder, a sensation of acid in diseases of the stomach, a sensation of sweetness in the mouth in severe forms of diabetes mellitus.
Taste therapy or taste therapy
This is not a joke at all. As already mentioned, various taste sensations act on the taste buds of the tongue: bitter, sour, sweet, salty. And, it turns out, they work in a healing way! After all, language is the "entrance gate" of the body. It is saturated with reflexogenic zones, which are associated not only with the digestive tract, but also with all organs. Therefore, the impact can be widest and depends on the type of food.
For example, if you hold a little bee honey with butter on your tongue, you can relieve a cough. Sweet foods tame cardiovascular disease, because sweet taste sensations contribute to vasodilation. Naturally, such therapy is used as an adjuvant, and these diseases cannot be cured only with its help. But it's still worth listening to.
If you suddenly have something sweet on your tongue: lollipops, honey, any sweets, raspberry jam. And after 5-7 minutes you will feel significant relief. With reduced pressure, experts recommend holding lemon juice diluted with water in your mouth.
Bitter foods have an anti-inflammatory effect, normalize kidney function, cleanse the body of salts and toxins. In small quantities, bitterness sharpens the mental faculties. However, bitter foods should not be abused: in large quantities they cause depression and melancholy.
Astringent taste stops diarrhea, improves blood clotting and is therefore used for bleeding, wounds. Interestingly, astringents, depending on the microelements included in their composition, can warm or cool the body.
Spicy promotes digestion, purifies the blood, kills germs and warms the body from the inside. And the salty taste causes thirst and hunger, retains water in the body and has a laxative effect for constipation.
Doctors say that there are a huge number of receptors on the tongue, by acting on which various diseases can be treated. For example, for heart disease, you need to massage the tip of the tongue, for diseases of the respiratory tract - the lateral surfaces. Massage of the middle part of the tongue is used for diseases of the pancreas, and the root of the tongue is used for diseases of the kidneys. The middle part of the tongue (closer to the front part) is responsible for the activity of the stomach, and its back part is responsible for the urogenital organs.
tongue cleaning
To be honest, our tongue is like a thick plush carpet with bacteria crawling on it. Food debris and tiny particles of dead epithelium accumulate here. In the process of decomposition, they release toxins, are absorbed into the bloodstream and cause bad breath.
For this reason, it needs daily cleaning. Moreover, the tongue should be cleaned in the direction from the root to the tip. An ordinary spoon, not a hard toothbrush or a special plastic scraper, resembling a microscopic mop, is suitable for this. The procedure takes only a minute: 30 seconds in the morning and the same in the evening. It just needs to become a habit.
There are about ten thousand taste buds on the human tongue, another two thousand are located under the tongue, on the lips, palate, larynx, inner surface of the cheeks. Each individual receptor does not live long - from ten to fourteen days, after which it dies off, and a new one comes to replace it. This is one of the reasons why a person tastes the same product differently throughout his life, and notices a change in his preferences with age.
Taste receptors are called sensitive cells located in the oral cavity (mainly on the mucous membrane of the tongue and palate), which, after exposure to various chemicals, give a sensation called "taste".
Each individual cell reacts only to one specific taste and remains indifferent to another. Therefore, taste buds are located in an uneven layer, but in groups, the cells of which react only to the same taste. These groups are collected in bundles and attached to the papillae of taste buds, which completely cover the surface of the tongue and are hidden under small tubercles.
taste buds
Large papillae contain about five hundred bulbs, small papillae contain only a few. The finest hairs (microvilli) are attached to them, which through microscopic holes go to the surface of the tubercles and are responsible for determining taste. On the opposite side of the receptors, there is a complex network of nerve fibers that convey the information received from the receptors to the brain.
Like most cells, taste buds do not live for more than two weeks, after which they die and are replaced by new ones. How quickly the replacement occurs depends largely on the nerve endings associated with it: if it happens that the receptor dies, and the connection between it and the nerve is interrupted for some reason, the cell will not regenerate until the nerve gives a signal.
As we age, the number of taste buds decreases, resulting in a reduced ability to taste.
Basic flavors
Most scientists believe that taste cells can only detect four tastes: bitter, sweet, salty, and sour. If they are located close to each other, a person prefers soft-tasting foods, if their density is low, more spicy foods.
To date, it is not known exactly where exactly the receptors that respond to a particular taste are located. Some researchers argue that the cells sensitive to sweet and salty are located on the tip of the tongue, those responsible for bitterness - under its base, for sour - on the side. Others refute this theory, arguing that taste buds with cells responsible for a certain taste are located all over the surface of the tongue, more in some places, less in others.
The receptors responsible for sweet, sour, and salty tastes in the mouth are much smaller than the taste cells responsible for bitterness. This is due to the body's need to protect itself from poisons, the toxic compounds of which are found in plants.
Foods that carry this or that taste affect the taste cells in different ways. While sweet and bitter substances simply transmit the sensation of taste to the cerebral cortex, sour and salty components, especially in high concentrations, can damage taste cells, the oral mucosa, and cause pain (burning, scratching, etc.).
This happens due to the fact that tactile sensations are added to the main sensations, causing a pain reaction in the nerve endings, and they transmit the corresponding reaction to the brain.
How is taste determined?
Taste sensations are transmitted to the brain by the facial, glossopharyngeal, and vagus cranial nerves. First, the impulses enter the brainstem, where the data is processed and sent along the nerve fibers to the thalamus (to the diencephalon, which is the subcortical center of all types of sensitivity).
In the thalamus, additional processing of taste impulses occurs, after which information about them goes further and ends up in that part of the cerebral cortex, which, after processing the signal, produces information in the form of awareness of the basic taste (salty, sweet, bitter, sour).
At the same time, information about the main taste is mixed in the thalamus with other sensations received from the oral cavity (primarily about the composition of food, its temperature), and also mixed with feelings received during irritation of pain-sensitive nerve fibers (peppered foods) and from the organ. smell.
These sensations are mixed with the received perception of the main taste, as a result of which its shades appear, which are recognized by a person during eating. 
In some cases, when several different tastes are combined, the sensation of the substance that has entered the taste buds is reversed (after cheese, the taste of wine intensifies, after sweet it may seem nasty). The same happens at different temperatures: taste cells are most sensitive from 20 to 38 ° C, if the tongue is cooled, the taste of sweet dishes will not be felt.
An African plant known as the Magic Fruit (Synsepalum dulcificum) has the ability to influence taste. Its small red fruit with a large white grain affects the taste buds in such a way that the cells responsible for recognizing sour are turned off for several hours (this happens thanks to the miraculin protein).
Other flavors
Although most scientists agree that taste cells can only detect four basic tastes, there are cells responsible for other taste sensations and how many of them have not yet been determined, so it is likely that the list will expand soon. First of all, it concerns alkaline, tart, minty, burning, metallic tastes. There are also suggestions that there are receptors that determine fatty acids.
The Chinese and other peoples of Southeast Asia also include the taste of umami as a basic sensation (Japanese scientists claim that the taste cells that fix umami are located not only on the tongue, but throughout the digestive tract).
The perception of umami is affected by monosodium glutamate and certain amino acids (the sensation obtained from soy sauce, parmesan, broccoli, mushrooms, tomatoes). Umami has no taste per se, but makes food tastier by enhancing the flavor, as well as causing increased salivation and a soft sensation on the tongue.
We all have about 10,000 taste buds, which are located mainly on the surface of the tongue and in the soft tissues of the mouth. They are very sensitive and specially located in such a place that we are able to distinguish food by taste, preferring one food and rejecting another.
chemical sensation
Taste, like smell, is a chemical sensation. It works by a reaction between the chemical elements in food and the sensory elements found in special cells that form taste buds. The reaction is transmitted by nerve endings to the brain in the form of a taste sensation.The tongue is thus the main organ of taste, since the food that the body takes in goes first into the mouth. The upper surface of the tongue is covered with numerous small growths, tubercles. Around them clusters of taste buds are formed. At the same time, some of them are in the larynx, on the soft palate and on the epiglottis.
taste buds
There are three types of taste papillae, papillae (the Latin word papillae literally means a protrusion in the form of a nipple). We list in order of increasing size: filiform (cone-shaped and filamentous), fungiform (mushroom-shaped) and gutter-shaped (cylindrical). In humans, the last two types are more present.Fungiform palillae are located over the entire surface of the tongue, in greater numbers - on the sides and at the tip. There are 7 to 12 gutter papillae, the largest, at the back of the tongue. They are arranged in the form of a flat V. Taste buds cover the sides of the gutter papillae and the upper plane of the fungiform papillae.
Each receptor papilla consists of 40 to 100 epithelial cells. These cells are part of the epithelium - a layer that covers the entire surface and cavities of our body.
There are three types of cells in taste buds: supporting, receptor (sensitive) and basal (at the base). Receptor cells are also called gustatory cells because they provide a signal for taste sensations. The supporting cells make up the bulk of the papilla and separate the taste cells from one another. The cells of the receptor papilla are constantly updated - the usual life cycle is about 10 days.
Parts of the tongue
Epiglottis. A small number of taste buds are located here, extending all the way to the beginning of the digestive tract.palatine tonsil. There are two tonsils in the mouth. There are few taste buds on the soft tissues that support the amygdala.
Gutter papillae. Round in shape, forming (at the back of the tongue) an inverted V.
fungiform papillae. Reminiscent of mushrooms, mainly found on the sides and tip of the tongue
Cone-shaped papillae. Cone-shaped, located mainly at a distance from the median line of the tongue.
Taste pathway
From each taste cell, very thin sensitive hairs sprout (through the epithelial cover). On the surface of the epithelium, they are washed by saliva, which is mixed with a food lump intended for a taste test. These hairs are sometimes referred to as sensory membranes, reflecting their initiatory role in the transmission of taste sensations.Sensory nerve cells coil around taste cells. From here comes the impulse sent to the brain. The transmission of these signals from taste cells to brain cells is called the "gustatory pathway."
Taste Mechanism
As soon as the food mixed with saliva, the taste buds were signaled to act. Taste cells transform the chemical reaction of taste into a nerve impulse. When the impulse reaches the brain, the analysis of taste information will begin.When the chemicals in the food react with the taste cells, a nerve impulse is sent to the thalamus, the subcortical center for all kinds of general sensibility. This brain structure processes a variety of impulses and combines similar ones. Then the thalamus sends them to the structure that is responsible for the sense of taste - the gustatory nerve of the cerebral cortex.
The thalamus itself is unable to fully appreciate the quality of taste. This is the work of the more sensitive taste nerve of the cerebral cortex.
Taste nerve of the cerebral cortex
This organ determines the quality of taste. The food substance must be mixed with saliva and come into contact with hairs called taste. From this moment, nerve impulses begin to be transmitted to the brain.Impulses are sent along the branches of the facial nerves from the taste buds located on the first two thirds of the tongue.
The lingual branch of the glossopharyngeal nerves serves the posterior third of the tongue. It appears that the flow of taste information to the brain is two-way, in order to satisfy the body's need for certain foods.
Taste cells in different parts of the tongue have a different threshold of sensitivity, which activates the beginning of recognition. The bitter part of the tongue can detect poisons in the smallest concentrations. This explains why the seeming inconvenience of being on the "back" of the tongue works as a precautionary measure before swallowing food. Acid receptors are less sensitive. The sensitivity of sweet and salty receptors is even less. The speed of the reaction of receptors to a new taste sensation is from 3 to 5 minutes.
What is often called taste is actually its combination with the sensation of smell. Taste is 80 percent smell, which is why cold, unflavoured food is not appetizing.
There are also other receptors on the tongue that help heighten the sense of taste. Spicy foods increase the pleasure of eating because they activate pain receptors on the tongue.
The structure of the taste bud
Taste hairs- sensitive microvilli of taste cells, washed by saliva.taste cell- also called receptor cell.
Support cells- isolate taste cells from each other, as well as from cells of the lingual epithelium.
epithelial cells- the outer covering of the tongue.
Nerve endings- transmit their pulses to the part of the brain - the thalamus.
Longitudinal section of the taste bud
Papillae of the tongue, which do not recognize the taste, but crush food due to their abrasive surface.taste bud- in group clusters on the basis of the papilla.
excretory ducts- Salivary glands of Ebner.
Abner glands- release secretion to wash the taste bud.
Tongue sensitivity to the four tastes
Taste sensations can be grouped into 4 main categories. It is sweet, sour, salty and bitter. Different parts of the tongue have different sensitivity to each of the tastes, although there is no clear structural separation between the taste buds.The tip of the tongue is most sensitive to sweet and salty foods. The sides of the tongue recognize the sour taste. The back of the tongue reacts most strongly to bitter. However, this separation is not absolute, as most of the taste buds respond to two, three, and sometimes all four taste sensations.
Certain food substances tend to change flavor as they move through the mouth. Saccharin, for example, tastes sweet at first and then turns bitter. Some natural poisons and spoiled food taste bitter. This is most likely why bitterness receptors are located at the back of the tongue as a protective barrier before swallowing. The “back” of the tongue serves as a guard in the mouth, rejecting the intake of “bad” food.
The human body. Outside and inside. №8 2008
All people have different tastes. One begins to frown at the smell of slightly burnt meat, while the other eats a pepper pod or drinks sugary wine with pleasure. In the process of its development, man has learned to distinguish between four types of taste: salty, bitter, sweet and sour. Sensory cells (i.e., taste buds) perceive taste. They are located in special bulbs located in the papillae of the tongue.
There are 4 types of taste buds on the tongue. They differ from each other in localization and form:
Fluted (located on the front of the tongue);
- mushroom-shaped (at the tip);
- leaf-shaped (located on the lateral surface);
- filamentous (perceive only mechanical impact and temperature, and also give a feeling of a caustic, tart, astringent taste).
Some animal species (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 buds exist for a short time - about ten days. Then they die and new ones form. This process is invisible to humans and is continuous.
Different parts of the surface of the tongue have different sensitivity to substances. The root is sensitive to bitter, the tip to sweet, the edges to salt. With most sour and bitter substances, a person feels almost the same.
How is the sense of taste formed? First, the substance enters the tongue. Then there is touch, and then the person begins to taste. Certain substances are able to enhance the sensations that taste buds process. For example, the taste of quality wine is enhanced after cheese, and after sweet it can seem very sour. The perceived taste will depend on the chemical processes that have been caused on the tongue, 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 occurs due to evaporation), and sharp, tart, burning, astringent, powdery - by a tactile reaction. If you hold your breath and hold your nose, then the taste sensations can change significantly: the onion becomes sweet like an apple. If you cool the tongue with ice for one minute, then the taste buds will not feel sweet. Such an experiment can be carried out with sugar.
Unfortunately, sometimes the taste receptors on the tongue fail. Increased sensitivity may develop - hypergeusia (at the same time it becomes impossible to eat any food), decreased sensitivity - hypogeusia and adhesion, which means a complete lack of taste. All of these conditions can develop with inflammation. It can cause the taste buds to stop functioning properly. Also, a change in perception is observed in some diseases of the digestive system (salty seems sweet). It can be diabetes, gastritis, inflammation of the gallbladder.
Through taste buds, it is possible to exert a therapeutic (therapeutic) effect on a person. able to destroy microbes in the body, lowers cholesterol and blood pressure; juniper oil performs an antiseptic and diuretic function, helps to normalize metabolic processes, and also increases the elasticity of the walls of blood vessels; lavender has a sugar-lowering, anti-inflammatory and antispasmodic effect, and rosemary dissolves kidney stones and lowers cholesterol. Taste buds 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.
Look what garbage, dear: there are seven colors in the rainbow, sounds consist of seven notes, even smells - and those seven types, and tastes, damn it, four in total: salty, sour, sweet, bitter. A hitch! Disorder! True, they say, there seems to be another one for which they couldn’t even come up with a Russian name (or didn’t want to?), But in bourgeois it sounds like “umami” and is attributed to its taste of monosodium glutamate.
Although monosodium glutamate itself is used to enhance the taste of foods and is seen on labels under the code E621.
The fact is that at the beginning of the twentieth century, a Japanese scientist named Kikunae Ikeda asked himself the question: why does food flavored with some dried seaweed become tastier and more appetizing? And he did find out! It turned out that they contain glutamic acid. Well, then it’s simple: a salt of glutamic acid was obtained from it - monosodium glutamate (monosodium glutamate), which they began to produce in Japan for sale under the unpronounceable name “aji-no-moto”, which, in fact, means “soul of taste”. Nuuu, and now it is generally poured wherever it hits, into everything.
So the fifth taste, I think is still in doubt. But, after all, there should be seven of them all the same! ;)
Of course, different substances can have a pure or mixed taste. But the taste of all purely bitter, purely sour, purely sweet and purely salty substances is felt by us in almost the same way.
For example, solutions of opium, morphine, strychnine, quinine can differ from each other only in the strength of the bitterness they cause, but not in any way in its taste. And if you equalize the strength of sensation by taking these solutions in different concentrations, then they become absolutely indistinguishable.
The same goes for sour tastes. Solutions of hydrochloric, nitric, sulfuric, phosphoric, formic, oxalic, tartaric, citric and malic acids, diluted in different proportions (bliiin, has anyone really tried all this !!??? ;)), are indistinguishable in taste.
And in the study of all kinds of sweet substances, it was also established that there are no several types of sweet. Substances may have a more or less pronounced sweet taste, but if this taste is purely sweet, then their solutions cannot be distinguished from one another by any means. By the way, glucose, fructose, lactose and sucrose have an absolutely sweet taste.
But with regard to the salty taste, it has been proved that in its pure form only one single substance has it - table salt, and all other "salty" substances have a bitter or sour taste. Here!
In general, the sensation of taste itself appears from the impact of various substances on “specially trained” cells of the tongue. In the mouth, in the mucous membranes of the tongue and soft palate of a person are taste buds collected in taste buds. And the taste buds themselves huddle on taste buds, of which the surface of our language mainly consists. Go to the mirror and stick out your tongue (too lazy or if someone is just shy, look at the picture) See the bumps? Here! These are taste buds.
Large papillae at the base of the tongue contain about 500 taste buds each, and small papillae on the anterior and lateral surfaces of the tongue contain several bulbs. In general, a person has several thousand taste buds, and each has about 30 to 80 taste cells.
The taste cells themselves live a very short life, only 10 days, after which they are replaced by young and full of strength comrades.
