An organ at the top of its game…

[25 February 2010 - 12h14]

Mobile and soft, measuring about 10 cm long, it plays a key role in the way we eat. We are of course referring to the tongue. Located in the centre of the mouth and attached at the base to the pharynx, the tongue is composed of numerous of sensory receptors known as papillae. It really is quite extraordinary.

In a way, the tongue is a high tech piece of apparatus. In a purely “mechanical” sense, the tongue is to the mouth what the fingers are to the hands. The tongue helps us to break up food so that it can mix more easily with our saliva. But that’s not all. It also plays a part in forming the food bolus by compressing food against the palate before pushing it towards the pharynx and oesophagus, through which it eventually reaches the stomach. Because of its position in the mouth, the tongue also enables us to produce and modulate sounds. In other words … to speak.

The tongue is also how we taste. The papillae of which it is composed are the source of the taste signal without which we would be incapable of distinguishing sweet and salt, for example. Classified according to their shape – foliate, calciform and fungiform – the papillae contain the “taste buds”. These operate as sensory receptors. They transmit chemical information to the brain about the taste characteristics of the food in our mouth. It is a highly complex task shared by our sense of sight and smell, which also play an indirect role in generating taste.

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