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Updated: Jun 20, 2026

Whole-Mount Staining, Visualization, and Analysis of Fungiform, Circumvallate, and Palate Taste Buds
Published on: February 11, 2021
Processing umami and other tastes in mammalian taste buds
Stephen D Roper1, Nirupa Chaudhari
1Department of Physiology and Biophysics, and Program in Neuroscience, Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami, Miami, Florida 33136, USA. sroper@med.miami.edu
None:
Neuroscientists are now coming to appreciate that a significant degree of information processing occurs in the peripheral sensory organs of taste prior to signals propagating to the brain. Gustatory stimulation causes taste bud cells to secrete neurotransmitters that act on adjacent taste bud cells (paracrine transmitters) as well as on primary sensory afferent fibers (neurocrine transmitters). Paracrine transmission, representing cell-cell communication within the taste bud, has the potential to shape the final signal output that taste buds transmit to the brain. The following paragraphs summarize current thinking about how taste signals generally, and umami taste in particular, are processed in taste buds.
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