Special Senses

  Hello all!!! We are back to our last and final blog for A & P. Today we will be talking about the special senses. For those of you that do not know your special senses are your smell, taste, vision, hearing and your equilibrium. So for our discussion today I decided that I wanted to focus on the tongue and the taste buds.

Taste or gustatory receptors are located on the taste buds. Taste buds are microscopic structures found on the papillae or (bumps) of the tongue.

There are four types of taste cells, and each type is activated by a particular group of chemicals to produce the following four primary taste sensations:

Sweet  Taste cells that respond to sweets are located at the tip of the tongue.

Sour Taste cells that respond to sour are located on the sides of the tongue.

Salty   Taste cells that respond to salty flavors are located on the tips and sides of the tongue.


Bitter   Taste cells that respond to bitter are located  at the back of the tongue.

There really is nothing too special about our taste buds but at the same time we would be lost without them. What if we could not taste all of those delicious foods that we love so much  what would we do. I know that I would be miserable.


Well all I hope that this blog was fun and informational for you. I only had to to this for a class but I actually am glad that I had to do this. Maybe I will keep it up. We will see!!  for now.