More facts about the tongue

• They are called taste buds, but "taste hairs" would be a more accurate name in that these receptors project like hairs from the walls of the tiny trenches that run between the bumps on your tongue.
• When you eat, the receptors send signals to the brain, which translates the signals into combinations of sweet, bitter, salty, and sour tastes.

• Soon after birth, more buds begin to grow, an by early childhood they cover the top and some of the bottom of the tongue, as well as areas in the cheeks and throat.
• Since young children have many more taste buds blooming in their mouths than adults, they frequently find foods to be too bitter or too spicy.
• Some adults seek out bitter or spicy foods because of a declining number of taste buds.
• In children and adults, each taste bud lives a matter of days before it is replaced.

• The four primary tastes; such as, sweet, bitter, salty, and sour, are each associated with a specific area on the tongue.
• The tip of the tongue is most sensitive to sweet and salty tastes, while sour seems to register more strongly on the sides of the tongue.
• Far to the rear of the tongue, grouped in a V-shape, are most of the receptors for bitter tastes.

• The sense of smell, with its own separate receptors, mostly determines what we experience as taste.
• The temperature and texture of food also contribute to its overall flavor.
• Oddly one's sensitivity to saltiness and bitterness seems to increase as food cools, sensitivity to sweetness increases with heat.
• A piece of chocolate may have very little taste when cold, taste fine at room temperature, but seem unpleasantly sweet when hot and half-melted.

Anesthesia, Part 3 of 3.