Sensing texture

Maggots recognize rotting fruit by its texture

In humans, the texture of food also plays a decisive role in food preferences. For example, some people enjoy the taste of mushrooms, but find the rubbery mouthfeel unpleasant when chewing.

(Bild: AFP)

Maggots are not only able to detect the taste of rotting fruit, they can also sense its texture. As researchers at the University of Freiburg discovered in a new study, they use the same taste cells for this. 

While tasting flavors requires chemical perception, sensing textures requires mechanical perception. Until now, it was unclear whether taste organs such as the tongue are able to detect both of these perceptions.

To find out more about this, the researchers used fruit fly larvae to help them. This is because they have a simpler nervous system than humans.

Taste neurons deactivated
Maggots only eat food if it is neither too hard nor too soft. In order to test whether the taste buds on the tongue also perceive consistency in addition to taste, the researchers deactivated these taste neurons in the larvae's mouth.

As a result, the maggots lost the feeling for the texture of the food and tried to eat softer or harder food that they would normally avoid. Further experiments showed that the so-called painless mechanoreceptor gene is necessary for this sensation. Whether humans have similar mechanisms is still unclear.