The chorda tympani (CT), which innervates taste buds on the anterior portion of the tongue, is susceptible to damage during inner ear surgeries. Injury to the CT causes a disappearance of taste buds, which is concurrent with significant microglial responses at central nerve terminals in the nucleus of the solitary tract (nTS). The resulting taste disturbances that can occur may persist for mont...

BACKGROUND Nurses at The Norwegian Radium Hospital have reported that some patients notice an unpleasant smell or taste in accordance with flushing of intravenous lines with commercially available prefilled syringes. We have conducted a study in healthy volunteers to investigate the occurrence, consistency and intensity of this phenomenon. METHODS A randomised, blinded, crossover study compar...

The sense of taste is essential for proper functioning of the organism. The authors describe, in an accessible way, the complex mechanisms of taste perception. The structure of particular taste receptors, variants of their activation, as well as physical and chemical factors modifying the sensation of taste, are presented. Exquisite culinary examples are given in order to facilitate the reader ...

Unilateral taste loss is usually observed on the side contralateral to a thalamic infarction, despite gustatory function being represented bilaterally. We report a rare case of bilateral taste loss in a patient with an acute left unilateral thalamic infarction, with unilateral left insular hypometabolism demonstrated by statistical parametric map analysis of PET images. Our observations suggest...

Experiments were done on the skin with shearing forces, vibrations, and heat stimuli and on the tongue with taste stimuli to show that the well known Mach bands are not exclusively a visual phenomenon. On the contrary, it is not difficult to produce areas of a decreased sensation magnitude corresponding to the dark Mach bands in vision. It is shown on a geometrical model of nervous interaction ...

Coating and agglomerating the Paracetamol prior to compression was beneficial to allow a proper embedding of the API into the chewing gum matrix. Additionally, it supported the required slowdown of drug liberation. Since the drug can merely be released from the gum by dissolving in saliva, this slow drug release was required to cover the taste sufficiently with orange flavour and sucralose. Rib...

Experiments were done on the skin with shearing forces, vibrations, and heat stimuli and on the tongue with taste stimuli to show that the well known Mach bands are not exclusively a visual phenomenon. On the contrary, it is not difficult to produce areas of a decreased sensation magnitude corresponding to the dark Mach bands in vision. It is shown on a geometrical model of nervous interaction ...

Alcohol produces a range of oral sensations, some of which have been shown to vary with the perceived bitterness of 6-n-propylthiouracil (PROP), one marker for genetic variation in taste. Some studies report that offspring of alcoholics are most likely to be PROP nontasters [Physiol. Behav. 51 (1992) 1261; Physiol. Behav. 64 (1998) 147], yet others report the offspring as more responsive to sod...

In the soft palate, tongue, pharynx and larynx surrounding the oral region, taste buds are present, allowing the sensation of taste. On the tongue surface, 3 kinds of papillae are present: fungiform, foliate, and circumvallate. Approximately 5,000 taste buds cover the surface of the human tongue, with about 30% fungiform, 30% foliate and 40% circumvallate papillae. Each taste bud comprises 4 ki...

There are reports on hypoesthesia and anesthesia in taste sensation persisting for several months or even years after dental anesthesia, pulpectomy and tooth extraction. Taste disorders following dental treatments are usually attributed to peripheral injury of taste (the chorda tympani) nerve fibers running with the lingual nerve fibers near the mandibular molars. 2 However, taste impairment in...