Department of Otolaryngology - Head & Neck Surgery, the Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, United States of America.
PLoS Comput Biol. 2020 Jun 4;16(6):e1007888. doi: 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1007888. eCollection 2020 Jun.
Most sensory systems are remarkable in their temporal precision, reflected in such phrases as "a flash of light" or "a twig snap". Yet taste is complicated by the transport processes of stimuli through the papilla matrix to reach taste receptors, processes that are poorly understood. We computationally modeled the surface of the human tongue as a microfiber porous medium and found that time-concentration profiles within the papilla zone rise with significant delay that well match experimental ratings of perceived taste intensity to a range of sweet and salty stimuli for both rapid pulses and longer sip-and-hold exposures. Diffusivity of these taste stimuli, determined mostly by molecular size, correlates greatly with time and slope to reach peak intensity: smaller molecular size may lead to quicker taste perception. Our study demonstrates the novelty of modeling the human tongue as a porous material to drastically simplify computational approaches and that peripheral transport processes may significantly affect the temporal profile of taste perception, at least to sweet and salty compounds.
大多数感觉系统在时间精度上都很出色，这反映在“一闪而过的光”或“小树枝折断的声音”等短语中。然而，味觉受到刺激通过乳头基质传输到达味觉感受器的过程的影响，这些过程还不太清楚。我们通过计算将人类舌头的表面建模为微纤维多孔介质，并发现乳头区域内的时间-浓度分布随着显著的延迟而上升，这与对快速脉冲和更长的吸吮和保持暴露于各种甜咸刺激物的感知味觉强度的实验评价非常吻合。这些味觉刺激物的扩散性主要由分子大小决定，与达到峰值强度的时间和斜率有很大的相关性：较小的分子大小可能导致更快的味觉感知。我们的研究表明，将人类舌头建模为多孔材料是一种新颖的方法，可以极大地简化计算方法，并且外围传输过程可能会显著影响味觉感知的时间分布，至少对甜咸化合物是如此。
