ELi5: How do we remember taste of things from years ago? Do our taste buds have memory?
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When you taste things, your taste buds send a signal to your brain. your bran does the hard work of interpreting, and remembering, those signals.
Our sense of taste is closely linked to our sense of smell. When we eat something, our taste buds help us detect different flavors, but it is our sense of smell that provides most of the information about the food’s taste. When we smell something, the smell molecules travel through the air and enter our nose, where they are detected by specialized cells called olfactory cells. These cells send signals to the brain, which creates the sensation of smell.
When we remember the taste of something from years ago, it is usually because we are also remembering the smell of that food. Our olfactory cells have a very good memory, and they can recall the smells of many different foods and other substances. So, even if we haven’t tasted a particular food in a long time, we may still be able to remember what it tasted like by recalling its smell.
Taste buds themselves do not have the ability to remember flavors, but they do play a important role in helping us taste and enjoy food. Taste buds are tiny cells that are found on the surface of our tongue and other parts of the mouth. They are sensitive to different chemicals in the foods we eat, and they help us detect the basic tastes of sweet, sour, salty, and bitter. Taste buds are constantly renewing themselves, so they do not have a long-term memory. However, they do help us experience the flavor of the foods we eat in the moment.
Your brain is what has the memory.
All of your senses come from various types of sensors in your body sending signals to your brain.
Eg Sight – when you remember how something looks, that doesn’t mean your actual eyeballs have memory, right? Your eyes were detecting light and sending electric signals along your optic nerve to the brain, which is what actually does the “seeing”, and the remembering of what you’ve seen.
Eg smell – You can remember how something smells. Does that mean your nose has memory? No – when you smell something, that means particles of the thing have entered your nose, triggered smell-receptors in there, which then sent an electric signal to your brain, which then registered the smell (and made a memory of it).
Taste works the same way, just replace “smell receptors in your nose” with “taste receptors on your tongue”. Your taste buds don’t “have memory”, they’re just detectors that go off when something stimulates them. That signal they produce goes along nerves to your brain and registers as a taste. **Your sense of taste is your brain telling you what taste signals are** ***currently*** **coming from your tongue, and your memory of tastes is your brain telling you what taste signals** ***were*** **coming from your tongue.**
Memories are formed and stored in the brain, whether you’re remembering a fact like who invented the airplane or a previous experience or sensation.
Our brains, not our taste buds, help us remember the taste of things we’ve eaten before. When we eat something, our taste buds send signals to our brains, which create a memory of the taste. When we eat that same thing again, our brains can recognize the taste and help us remember what it was like. Our taste buds can only taste the basic flavors, like sweet, salty, sour, and bitter, but our brains help us remember the more complex flavors, like the taste of a specific food or drink. So, even if we haven’t eaten something for a long time, our brains can still help us remember what it tasted like.
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