Gustatory system articles from across Nature Portfolio

Perception and appreciation of food flavour depends on many factors, posing a challenge for effective prediction. Here, the authors combine extensive chemical and sensory analyses of 250 commercial Belgian beers to train machine learning models that enable flavour and consumer appreciation prediction.

A study reports structures of an insect taste receptor in the absence and presence of different sugars, providing details on the molecular basis of sugar detection and selectivity in insects.

How the larval environment influences the sensory characteristics of the future adult is largely unknown. Here, using Drosophila as a model, the authors show that the presence of certain bacterial species during the larval stage modify the gustatory capacities of the future adult flies.

Genetic comparison of rainforest foraging and neighboring agricultural communities in Uganda and the Philippines shows no distinction in the size of olfactory receptor gene repertoires, but there is evidence for subsistence-related local adaptation.

Animals need to be able to evaluate environmental pH. Mechanisms that mediate sour taste and acid sensing have been reported across species, but less is known about the detection of high pH. Mi et al. identify the gene alkaliphile, which encodes a high-pH-gated chloride channel in the gustatory system of flies.

A study in mice finds that different dopamine neuron subsystems in the midbrain track food and fluid ingestion at different stages of this process, and that animals can use this information to learn about the results of ingestion.

Neuropod cells in the gut epithelium of mice are sensory transducers for sweet stimuli and mediate the preference for sugar over artificial sweeteners.

The innate responses of mice to sweet-tasting or bitter-tasting stimuli can be modulated by top-down feedback from the cortex.