Smelling With Your . . . Tongue?
Most people with an above-average interest in flavors know that smells represent a large
Luis Ayala
proportion of the stimuli we perceive as taste. It is for this reason that food and beverages don’t taste quite right when our sense of smell is compromised, due to a cold, allergy or to other upper-respiratory conditions.
But did you know that not all aromas you perceive are being detected by the olfactory receptors in your nose?
In a study published in the Chemical Senses journal, Dr. Mehmet Hakan Ozdener, a cell biologist at Monell, -along with a team of researchers- set out to investigate if taste and smell were independent sensory systems that did not interact until their respective information reached the brain.
The team put to use a method developed by Monell, which maintains living human taste cells in culture. The research team then used genetic and biochemical methods to probe these cultures. Upon examination, they found that human taste cells contain many key molecules known to be present in the olfactory receptors.
Following this discovery, the team used a method known as Calcium Imaging to show that cultured taste cells respond to odor molecules, in a way similar to the response from the olfactory receptor cells!
While more research is still needed to fully understand the extent and impact of this finding, it does shed light on how mysterious the world of smell and taste still is today, despite all the advances in science from the last century.
Eugene Lonesco (French-Romanian playwright) once wrote: “A nose that can see is worth two that sniff”. As someone with synesthesia, I am fascinated by the thought of sensory stimuli overlapping the organs normally associated with the perception. But even if it turns out not to explain my condition, I’m still thrilled to know that this area is receiving much-needed scientific attention.
Cheers,
Luis Ayala, Editor and Publisher