Dental News - Study finds human tongue has ability to detect odors

Dental Tribune International

Thu. 16. May 2019

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PHILADELPHIA, U.S.: The powers of the tongue have been well researched. However, in a new study, scientists from the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia have reported that the sensors that detect odors in the nose are also present in human taste cells found on the tongue. The findings suggest that interactions between the senses of smell and taste may, in fact, begin on the tongue and not in the brain, as previously thought.

“Our research may help explain how odor molecules modulate taste perception,” said senior author Dr. Mehmet Hakan Ozdener, a cell biologist and senior research associate at Monell. “This may lead to the development of odor-based taste modifiers that can help combat the excess salt, sugar, and fat intake associated with diet-related diseases such as obesity and diabetes.”

Until this recent discovery, taste and smell were considered to be independent sensory systems that did not interact until their respective information reached the brain. According to Ozdener, he was prompted to challenge this belief when his 12-year-old son asked him whether snakes extend their tongues so that they can smell.

In his research, Ozdener and his team used methods developed at Monell to maintain living human taste cells in culture. Using genetic and biochemical methods to probe the taste cell cultures, the researchers found that the human taste cells contain many key molecules known to be present in olfactory receptors. They then used a method known as calcium imaging to show that the cultured taste cells respond to odour molecules in a manner similar to that of olfactory receptor cells.

“The presence of olfactory receptors and taste receptors in the same cell will provide us with exciting opportunities to study interactions between odor and taste stimuli on the tongue,” said Ozdener.

With such interesting results coming from their first study, researchers will now begin a process of determining whether olfactory receptors are preferentially located on a specific taste cell type, for example, sweet- or salt-detecting cells. Other studies will explore how odor molecules modify taste cell responses and, ultimately, human taste perception.

The study, titled “Mammalian taste cells express functional olfactory receptors,” was published online on April 24, 2019, in Chemical Senses ahead of inclusion in an issue.

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