Topographical differences in sweetness sensitivity in the peripheral gustatory system of adults and children

The sensitivity of localised areas of the anterior tongue of adults and 8-year-old males to the sweetener sucrose was determined, using a two-alternative forced choice psychophysical procedure. Stimulation of 12 areas by 0.2125 M sucrose or water, using a filter paper technique, indicated that the children were significantly more sensitive to the sweetener at eight of the areas. Counts of papillae at each of the 12 areas showed that there were similar numbers for adults and children at eight areas, whilst at three of the areas that exhibited a higher sensitivity to sucrose, children had significantly more papillae. Since 8-year-old males are less sensitive to sucrose when the stimulus is given as a whole-mouth stimulus [12], it is proposed that the children's gustatory system may be unable to integrate the information available at the tongue as efficiently as adults, or that the threshold and stimulus-response functions of receptor cells are different in the two groups.