A Canyon for Taste

The small bumps you can see on the tip of your tongue when you look at your tongue in the mirror are taste papillae. And at the back of your tongue are large taste papillae, with deep trenches lined with hundreds of taste buds. Both the small taste buds on the tip of our tongue and the taste buds lining the large papillae at the back of our tongue allow us to perceive the taste of our food.

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A Canyon for Taste

What am I looking at?

This is one side of a large taste papilla at the back of a mouse tongue. The taste buds that line the papilla are shown in pink (1). The nerves that send taste information from the taste buds to the brain are shown in yellow (2). And the nuclei of all the cells are shown in dark blue-green (3).

Biology in the background

The perception of taste occurs when specialized cells in the tongue called taste receptor cells detect chemicals present in our food and drink. These cells are organized into clusters called taste buds.

Taste receptor cells can detect five tastes: sweet, salty, bitter, sour, and umami (savory). Fun fact: umami is a Japanese word that means “deliciousness.”

Taste perception helps us identify foods that are good for us. Generally, things that taste sweet are high in carbohydrates (sugars), which can be digested to give us energy. Salty things generally contain essential vitamins and minerals. Savory items often have good fat and protein content. On the other hand, bitter and sour tastes are associated with foods that can potentially be toxic, although sometimes bitter and sour tastes signify beneficial nutrients.

This papilla is about 300 micrometers tall, or roughly four times larger than the width of a human hair. And each of the taste buds you see here is about 50 micrometers across, or slightly smaller than the width of a human hair.

Technique

This image was created using confocal microscopy.