All people have different tastes. One begins to frown at the smell of slightly burnt meat, and the other eats a pod of pepper with pleasure or drinks sugary wine. In the process of its development, a person has learned to distinguish four types of taste: salty, bitter, sweet and sour. Sensitive cells (i.e., taste buds) perceive taste. They are in special bulbs located in the papillae of the tongue.
There are 4 types of taste buds in the tongue. They differ from each other in localization and shape:
- grooved (located on the front of the tongue);
- mushroom-shaped (on the tip);
- leaf-shaped (located on the side surface);
- filiform (they perceive only mechanical impact 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 a liquid. Taste receptors exist for a short time - about ten days. Then they die off and new ones are formed. This process is invisible to humans and 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 edge to salty. At the same time, the taste of most acidic and bitter substances is felt by a person almost identically.
How is a sense of taste formed? First, the substance enters the tongue. Then there is a touch, and then a person begins to feel the taste. Certain substances can enhance the senses that process taste buds. For example, the taste of quality wine is enhanced after cheese, and after sweet, it can seem very sour. Perceived taste will depend on the chemical processes that have been caused 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 occurs due to evaporation), and the sharp, tart, burning, astringent, mealy - a tactile reaction. If you hold your breath and pinch your nose, then the taste sensations can change significantly: onions become sweet like an apple. If you cool your tongue with ice for one minute, then taste buds will not feel sweet. Such an experiment can be carried out with sugar.
Unfortunately, sometimes the language receptors responsible for taste fail. Sensitivity may develop increased - hypergevzia (while eating any food becomes impossible), decreased - hypogevzia and aughesia, 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 taste buds cease to function properly. Also, a change in perception is observed with 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. Garlic oil can destroy microbes in the body, reduces 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 from them regulates the quantitative and qualitative secretion of the stomach. In addition, taste is one of the greatest joys of everyday life.