Latest

taste perception

This is an illustration of a woman eating bitter foods.

·September 22, 2026·5 min read

AI Decodes the Taste of Bitterness

Researchers combine protein language models and neural networks to accurately predict and design bitter-tasting peptides from scratch.

Featured Neuroscience

·July 21, 2026·7 min read

Why Food Tastes Different After Coffee

Researchers developed a biomimetic taste sensor combining 3D taste bud organoids with custom 200 mu-tall 3D microelectrode arrays.

This shows a depressed man with his hands to his nose.

Featured Neurology Neuroscience

·June 21, 2026·10 min read

Losing Smell Triggers Severe Clinical Depression

Smell and taste disorders cause psychological, emotional, and social suffering that rivals severe chronic illnesses like stroke, diabetes, and Parkinson's.

This shows a woman in a facemask and the COVID virus.

Featured Neuroscience

·March 2, 2026·7 min read

Why Some COVID Patients Lose Taste for Years

Scientists discover a molecular "amplifier" defect in the taste buds of long-COVID patients, explaining why some flavors disappear while others remain.

This shows the outline of a person drinking. The brain highlights the reward system.

Featured Neuroscience

·March 2, 2026·6 min read

Trick the Brain, Taste the Reward: How Expectations Rewrite Sweetness

Expectation is the secret ingredient. New neuroimaging research reveals that believing a drink contains sugar can "supercharge" the brain's reward response to artificial sweeteners.

Featured Neuroscience

·November 1, 2025·6 min read

How Chocolate’s Puckering Taste May Stimulate the Brain

Japanese researchers have uncovered how the astringent “bite” of cocoa flavanols can activate the brain—even though little of the compound enters the bloodstream. In mice, the sensation of astringency triggered sensory nerves that stimulated neurotransmitters linked to motivation, alertness, and memory.

This shows a man eating a lemon, and a brain.

Featured Neuroscience

·September 21, 2025·5 min read

AI Reveals Bitter Taste Receptors’ Hidden Role in Gut-Brain Health

Researchers used AlphaFold3, the latest AI-based protein modeling system, to predict the structures of all 25 known human bitter taste receptors (T2Rs). Compared with AlphaFold2, AF3 consistently generated more accurate structural predictions when benchmarked against experimentally determined data.

This shows a woman in VR goggles and food.

Featured Neuroscience

·February 28, 2025·5 min read

New Tech Lets You Taste Digital Food

Scientists have developed e-Taste, a novel technology that digitally replicates taste in virtual environments. Using chemical sensors and wireless dispensers, the system captures and transmits taste data remotely, enabling users to experience sweet, sour, salty, bitter, and umami flavors.

This shows a woman eating in a small cell.

Featured Neuroscience Psychology

·November 18, 2024·4 min read

Confined Spaces Change How We Smell and Experience Food

Researchers found that confined environments, like the International Space Station, alter the way people perceive food aromas, with emotions significantly coloring their responses. Using virtual reality to simulate space conditions, participants reported stronger smells for most aromas, except lemongrass, compared to a microgravity posture.

Featured Neuroscience

·April 30, 2024·7 min read

Sour Power: Why Some Adults Love Intense Sourness

Researchers uncovered that approximately one in eight adults enjoys intensely sour flavors, challenging the common belief that adults generally dislike sourness. This international study utilized participants from the U.S. and Italy to explore the liking patterns of sourness in adults.

Featured Neuroscience

·April 10, 2024·5 min read

How the Brain Perceives Bitter Taste

A new study sheds light on how we perceive bitter tastes, revealing the detailed structure of the TAS2R14 bitter taste receptor for the first time. By pinpointing where bitter substances bind to TAS2R14 and understanding its activation mechanism, scientists have laid the groundwork for developing treatments that could regulate taste receptors to address conditions like obesity and diabetes.

This shows a glass of wine and computer code.

Featured Neuroscience

·December 1, 2023·5 min read

Taste-Driven AI Algorithms Enhance Wine Selections

Wine apps like Vivino and Hello Vino are utilizing AI algorithms to help wine enthusiasts select the perfect bottle. Researchers have taken it a step further by incorporating people's flavor impressions into the algorithms.