ABSTRACT
In 1994, the US National Centre for Health collected data on the problems with taste and smell experienced by people aged over 18. Losses of smell and taste significantly predicted levels of general health, other sensory problems such as losses of vision or hearing, difficulty standing or bending and depression. Changes in sensitivity of taste and smell are small inconveniences but are also hints to be alert for other health issues. Like taste receptors, smell receptors have brief lives and are replaced about every thirty days. Individual receptors also produce different, characteristic temporal codes of pulses for different volatile molecules. The intensity and complexity of taste also very much depends on our smell receptors. It was once thought that the tongue and mouth receptors, even with help from the nose receptors, could distinguish only between four basic taste sensations: sweet, sour, salty and bitter; four instruments in a quartet playing all the taste-melodies that we experience.
