- Tongue: Small protrusions called nipples are spread across the surface of the tongue, and taste buds are spread over them, as each bud contains sensory cells and support cells. There are two types of nipples:
- Fungal nipples function to sense sweet, salty, and sour tastes and are located in the front and sides.
- Flared nipples whose function is to sense the bitter taste and are located in the back.
- Nose: The two external nostrils lead to two cavities with a nasal septum between them. The nasal cavity is lined with a mucous membrane whose function is to moisturize the incoming air and purify it of dust and microbes. Three nasal ossicles emerge from each nasal cavity, dividing the nasal cavity into four passages. The lower three passages act as air passages, while the fourth passage is an epithelial tissue called the olfactory epithelial tissue, as it consists of smell-sensitive cells and support cells whose function is to support and support the sensory cells. The axons converge to form the olfactory nerve, which transmits nerve impulses to the brain.
- Mechanism of smell: The gas dissolves in the mucous fluid lining the nasal cavity, as the sensory cells are affected by the smell, forming nerve impulses that travel through the olfactory nerve to the brain. The olfactory receptor cells do not differ in structure, but the difference is in the reception sites, so we can distinguish between smells. The smells were divided into (ethereal, burning, and unpleasant odors).
How do the senses of smell and taste work?
Your nose and tongue are sense organs and contain receptor cells that sense smells and flavors and send signals about them to the brain. Receptive cells specialized in the sense of taste are located in the taste buds on the surface (epithelium) of the tongue.
The taste buds contain receptor cells (buds) that sense four different flavors: sweet, salty, bitter, and sour. When a taste bud senses a taste, it sends a signal to the brain and it tells you what taste it tastes like.
The papillae (taste buds) sense smells, and smells are present in the air. When the air passes through the nostrils, the smells (contact) pass to the receptor cells called olfactory cells.
If the amount of odors is sufficient in the air, the olfactory cells send a signal to the brain and it tells you what to smell/inhale. The brain can distinguish (feel) about ten thousand different smells.
The senses of smell and taste usually work together. Think about the times you had a cold or runny nose? You may have noticed that you do not have a good taste of the food you are eating at the time. This is due to the fact that the brain uses together the information received from the sensory cells specialized in smell and those specialized in taste. Without your sense of smell, your sense of taste does not work well.
Question: Does what you see affect your sense of taste?
People like to see foods in the colors they taste or are used to. This is why we see that food manufacturers use and add colorful substances to affect our taste in foods to increase their ability to attract our attention.
Even today, most people know that the process of tasting generally begins with a type of gustatory sensory receptor hidden within small papillae, metaphorically called “taste buds.” These receptors, linked to specialized sensory cells, work to identify flavor-carrying molecules and transmit the relevant information to the taste centers in the brain. Even at this level nothing seems complicated. The message, consisting of a series of small nerve signals of varying intensity, passes through the visual thalamus and then forms an image in the gustatory cortex area, where the brain compares it with the different flavors stored in it. Thus, the brain can recognize an infinite number of different flavors, and after analyzing the message, the brain releases Unleashing a series of reactions that appear in the form of (eating food, digesting food, vomiting food…etc.) The signal of each taste cell goes towards the nerves at the end of the taste buds and then leaves the papillae to ascend to the brain via the primary taste nerves.