MEDICAL PHYSIOLOGY

Detailed explanation-1: -Taste or gustation is one of the 5 traditional senses including hearing, sight, touch, and smell. The sense of taste has classically been limited to the 5 basic taste qualities: sweet, salty, sour, bitter, and umami or savory.

Detailed explanation-2: -5 basic tastes-sweet, sour, salty, bitter, and umami-are messages that tell us something about what we put into our mouth, so we can decide whether it should be eaten.

Detailed explanation-3: -Viewed under a microscope, your tongue is an alien landscape, studded by fringed and bumpy buds that sense five basic tastes: salty, sour, sweet, bitter, and umami. But mammalian taste buds may have an additional sixth sense-for water, a new study suggests.