Peripheral neural basis for behavioural discrimination between glutamate and the four basic taste substances in mice

1. Single chorda tympani fibres sensitive to monosodium L-glutamate (MSG), elicit a unique taste in humans and gave a greater response to NaCl and/or sucrose than to MSG whereas several MSG-sensitive glossopharyngeal fibres responded only slightly if at all to NaCl and sucrose. 2. The across-fibre correlations showed that MSG and NaCl produced similar response patterns in the chorda tympani fibres but different response patterns in the glossopharyngeal fibres. 3. These results suggest that taste information of glossopharyngeal fibres plays a relatively more important role in the qualitative discrimination between MSG and the four basic taste substances than that of chorda tympani fibres.