The Role of the Tongue

A key player in our sense of taste is the tongue. Most of our taste buds are located there, although some are found in other parts of the mouth and in the esophagus. Take a close look at your tongue in the mirror. Notice the numerous small projections that give your tongue a velvety feel. These are called papillae. Tiny taste buds cluster within the papillae on the tongue’s surface. “Each bud contains 100 or so taste cells,” says Science magazine, “which, when excited, trigger a nerve cell that carries the signal to the brain.”

The number of taste buds may vary greatly from person to person and thus affect taste. The human tongue may have as many as 10,000 taste buds or as few as 500. Inglis Miller, who studied the anatomy of taste buds, observed: “People who have more taste buds taste more; people with fewer taste buds taste less.”

How Taste Works

Taste is a highly complex sense. Strictly speaking, it is a matter of chemistry. Dissolved chemical components from food in our mouth stimulate taste receptors that project through the pores in our tongue. The receptor cells react and stimulate nerve cells (neurons) to send signals from the taste bud to the brain.

Amazingly, one taste bud can trigger many different neurons, and one neuron may receive messages from several taste buds. No one knows exactly how the taste receptors and their complicated system sort it all out. The Encyclopedia Americana says: “The sensations perceived in the brain evidently result from a complex coding of the electrical impulses transmitted by the receptor cells.”

On the other hand, as the article continues, “taste . . . is quite simple. We differentiate four (and only four) taste qualities: sweet, salty, sour, and bitter.” Although it has been popular to map the tongue into taste-sensitive areas, it is now believed that a single taste bud anywhere on the tongue can detect several or all of these four taste qualities.