SENSORY ... how our senses interact to create a full understanding of a meal

Important understanding if you want to understand gastronomy;

Senses, our senses inter act with one another to create everything we perceive and experience in our everyday lives. From our sense of smell, taste, touch, sight and hearing. in this post i will in a general sense go over how these are all tied together. 

Limbic system: 

FL: Carries out higher mental processes such as thinking, decision making, and planning(your personality)

T: Aside from sense of smell, all other sensory processes involve a thalamic nucleus receiving a sensory signal which is then directed to the relevant cortical area.(sending info to other brain parts for prepossessing)

HI: is important in forming new memories and connecting emotions and senses, such as smell and sound, to memories.(what you like and do not like)

AM:involves emotions and motivations, particularly those that are related to survival (do or do not eat)

HY: govern body temperature, thirst, hunger, sleep, circadian rhythm, moods, sex drive, and the release of other hormones in the body.(responsible for mouth watering)

OG: receives neural input about odors detected by cells in the nasal cavity. (your sense of smell)

Taste:

Our sense of taste is there to give us information if something is eatable or not, it is our last control system for survival and if often confused with our sense of smell.

Humans detect taste with taste receptor cells. These are clustered in taste buds and scattered in other areas of the body. Each taste bud has a pore that opens out to the surface of the tongue enabling molecules and ions taken into the mouth to reach the receptor cells inside.

• this chart leaves out the new 5th taste profile Umami.

Salty:(NaCl)The main function of aldosterone (a hormone that increases salt receptors) is to maintain normal sodium levels in the body,

Sour: Sour receptors detect the protons (H⁺) liberated by sour substances (acids). This closes transmembrane K⁺ channels which leads to depolarization of the cell (link), and the release of the neurotransmitter serotonin into its synapse with a sensory neuron.

Sweet: surcose binds with (GPCRs) The hormone leptin inhibits sweet cells by opening their K⁺ channels. This hyperpolarizes the cell making the generation of action potentials more difficult. 

Bitter: [PTC] also binds with (GPCRs)  there are 25 different bitter receptors ("T2Rs")

Umami: Umami is the response to salts of glutamic acid — like monosodium glutamate (MSG) a flavor enhancer used in many processed foods and in many Asian dishes. Processed meats and cheeses (proteins) also contain glutamate.

Smell:

first response (you can smell a fire before you see it)
Smell depends on sensory receptors that respond to airborne chemicals. In humans, these chemoreceptors are located in the olfactory epithelium — a patch of tissue about the size of a postage stamp located high in the nasal cavity. The olfactory epithelium is made up of three kinds of cells:

• sensory neurons each with a primary cilium
• supporting cells between them
• basal cells that divide regularly producing a fresh crop of sensory neurons to replace those that die

humans can differentiate between 5,000-50,000 smells but have a huge problem naming them.

Our sense of smell is the oldest and starts developing when we are in the whom, and is the main factor in what most people perceive as taste. smell is central to one part of the brain the Olfactory bulb and like most other parts of your body it can be trained. 

Fun fact:Many odorous substances activate not only the olfactory system but also the ‘somatosensory’ system -the nerve endings in our noses which are sensitive to temperature, pain etc. This is why ‘anosmics’ (patients who have completely lost their sense of smell ) can still detect menthol, phenylethyl alcohol and many other substances. In a study testing anosmics’ ability to perceive odorous substances, it was found that many so-called odours are in fact affecting the pain- and temperature-sensitive nerve-endings, rather than the olfactory receptors. Out of 47 ‘odorous’ substances, anosmics could detect 45. (Only two substances could not be detected by the anosmic patients: these were decanoic acid and vanillin, which affect only the olfactory receptors, and can thus safely be classified as ‘pure’ odours.) Some unpleasant ‘smells’ do more than just annoy or disgust us, they actually cause us pain. (http://www.sirc.org/publik/smell_human.html)

If you are interested in further reading check out "The psychology of eating and drinking"