Tastants

Here are the bare essentials of taste bud structure. At the top of the taste bud, there is a small pore opening into the bud. Tastants get access to the taste bud molecular machinery through this pore. The body of the taste bud is composed of 30-100 individual neuroepithelial cells, of three types. The key cell type is the sensory cell in whose membrane is embedded the receptors for tastants. The afferent taste nerve... 

Taste bud a structure in the mouth housing receptors for tastants. 

After the saliva has carried the tastants into the taste bud, they interact with the taste receptors on the surface of the cells, or with ion channels, which are pore-like proteins. Salty and sour tastants act through ion channels, and sweet and bitter sensations are mediated by surface receptors. The different taste submodalities rely on specific mechanisms Na+ flux through Na+... 

Researchers have oscillated between emphasizing specificity of neurons ( labeled lines ) and responses to a spectrum of tastants by one cell. More recently, patterns of activation of a number of sensory cells are favored for coding specific taste sensations (Smith and Margolskee, 2001). Neural distinction of different tastes requires simultaneous activation of different cell types. The brain receives a single channel of information, simply bitter for a number of different compounds. 

Odorants and tastants in foods interact in complicated ways. For instance, strawberry odor enhances the sweetness of whipped cream, while peanut butter odor does not, and strawberry odor did not enhance the saltiness of sodium chloride (Frank and Byram, 1988). 

Prank, R. A. and Byram, J. (1988). Taste-smell interactions are tastant and odorant dependent. Chemical Senses 13,445-455. 

Metabolites Hormones Neurotransmitters Mediators Odorants Tastants Other molecules Inorganic ions i... 

An important goal toward understanding sensation at the molecular level is the characterization of receptor proteins which bind a specific odorant or tastant Two approaches have been taken direct binding studies of stimulant with a receptor preparation, and identification of genes that code for receptor proteins. The weak reversible interactions make it difficult to stabilize such a complex for isolation and... 

As a direct result of this so-called food-minus trend some of the ingredients have to replaced or reduced. Owing to their role as preference drivers in food consumption, it is important to retain the whole flavour and taste profile of the original product, which can be done in most cases using a mixture of flavours, tastants, taste modifiers and texturants. 

Mathematical Approaches for Quantitative Design of Odorants and Tastants... 

There are many ways to obtain distance-like measures among flavor compounds. First, stimuli are generally equated in subjective intensity so that judgments are based on quality rather than intensity. Odorants are diluted in an odorless grade of diethyl phthalate and tastants, in deionized water. Then subjects rate all the n(n-l)/2 possible pairs for a set of n stimuli along an undifferentiated 5" line ... 

Similarity measures can also be obtained using a 10 point scale (e.g., from 1 to 10) or by obtaining confusabilities among triads. Odorants (or tastants) confused most frequently are considered more similar. Missing data designs can be used to reduce the number of actual stimulus presentations. 

Gustatory neurons have serpentine receptors that respond to tastants by altering [cAMP], which in turn changes Vm by gating ion channels. 

The following chapter (G2) covers the measurement of acid tastants, i.e., chemicals responsible for the acid and sour taste as well as the perception of astringency. unitgu presents methods for potentiometric and colorimetric titration of acid tastants, and unit... 

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