Hellekant G, Ninomiya Y, DuBois G E, Danilova V, Roberts T W
University of Wisconsin, Madison 53706, USA.
Physiol Behav. 1996 Aug;60(2):469-79. doi: 10.1016/s0031-9384(96)80021-7.
The purpose of this study was to investigate further with electrophysiological and behavioral techniques the similarity between the sense of taste of humans and chimpanzees, especially with regard to the effects of gymnemic acid. Gymnemic acid (GA) is a powerful suppressor of sweet taste in humans but lacks this ability in nonprimates and lower primates. The summated taste responses from the chorda tympani nerve were recorded in nine adult chimpanzees, Pan troglodytes. The results show that all tested compounds that taste to humans elicited nerve responses in chimpanzees. GA suppressed or abolished the response to all sweeteners, but had no effects on the responses to the nonsweet compounds. The suppression varied from complete abolishment (aspartame, saccharin), to about 50% reduction (xylitol). When the effect of GA was tested on concentration series, 20% remained of the response to sucrose, whereas the responses to aspartame and saccharin were basically abolished. Higher concentrations of GA suppressed more. The effects of GA developed also in the presence of saccharin, but seemed less pronounced. The behavioral results were obtained with a one-bottle preference technique before and after GA. The results demonstrated that after exposure of the tongue to GA, the animals' liking for sweet diminished. These results parallel psychophysical and electrophysiological findings in humans. The way GA suppressed sweet taste in chimpanzees added one more characteristic to those that set chimpanzees apart from monkeys and close to humans.
本研究的目的是运用电生理和行为学技术进一步探究人类与黑猩猩味觉的相似性，尤其是关于匙羹藤酸的影响。匙羹藤酸（GA）是一种对人类甜味有强大抑制作用的物质，但在非灵长类和低等灵长类动物中缺乏这种能力。在9只成年黑猩猩（黑猩猩属）身上记录了鼓索神经的总和味觉反应。结果表明，所有对人类有味道的测试化合物在黑猩猩身上都能引发神经反应。GA抑制或消除了对所有甜味剂的反应，但对非甜味化合物的反应没有影响。抑制程度从完全消除（阿斯巴甜、糖精）到约50%的降低（木糖醇）不等。当测试GA对浓度系列的影响时，对蔗糖的反应仍有20%残留，而对阿斯巴甜和糖精的反应基本被消除。更高浓度的GA抑制作用更强。GA的作用在有糖精存在的情况下也会出现，但似乎不太明显。行为学结果是通过在使用GA前后的单瓶偏好技术获得的。结果表明，在舌头接触GA后，动物对甜味的喜好降低。这些结果与人类的心理物理学和电生理研究结果相似。GA抑制黑猩猩甜味的方式为将黑猩猩与猴子区分开来并使其更接近人类的特征又增添了一个。
