Your sense of taste is hardwired in brain

New York: If you think that mouthwatering "umami" taste comes to you via your tongue which sends signals to the brain "telling" you what we have tasted, read on. Turning this idea on its head, scientists have turned tastes on and off by activating and silencing clusters of specific brain cells in mice.

"Taste, the way you and I think of it, is ultimately in the brain," said study leader Charles S. Zuker, professor of biochemistry and molecular biophysics and of neuroscience from the Columbia University Medical Centre (CUMC).

"Dedicated taste receptors in the tongue detect sweet or bitter and so on, but it is the brain that accords meaning to these chemicals," he noted.

Most people think that we perceive the five basic tastes -- sweet, sour, salty, bitter and umami (savoury) - with our tongue. To look deeper, scientists used optogenetics, which allowed them to directly activate specific neurons with laser light.