Taste is all in your head
Tweaking mouse brain cells turns water bitter or sweet
It’s not water into wine, but close enough. By stimulating certain nerve cells in the brains of mice, scientists made plain water taste sweet or bitter. The results show that the brain — not the tongue — is the ultimate tastemaker.
Columbia University neuroscientist Charles Zuker and colleagues took aim at a part of the mouse brain called the gustatory cortex. There, the nerve cells responsible for sensing bitter lie about two millimeters from those that sense sweet. Researchers tweaked these groups of cells so they would spring into action when light hit them.