Study reveals how taste buds react as we eat

Harvard scientists have created a live imaging map of the tongues taste buds to determine what happens each time we place food in our mouths. It reveals how taste buds have different cells that are used to differentiate between the five basic groups of flavours. A specially designed microscope was used to image single cells on the tongue of a mouse. Shining a bright infrared laser on the mouses tongue caused different parts of it and flavour molecules to flouresce. Using a method called intravital multiphoton microscopy the scientists were then able to pick out individual taste cells within each bud. There are more than 2,000 taste buds on the human tongue, which can distinguish between at least 5 tastes salty, sweet, sour, bitter and umami. Scientist Professor Yun said that with this new imaging tool we have shown that each taste bud contains taste cells for different tastes.