SPECIES-DIFFERENCES TOWARD SWEETENERS

The understanding of the sense of taste in mammals has over the last f ew decades slowly changed from the misconception that all mammals are equal with regard to taste to a realization that there are profound di fferences between species. These differences probably pertain to all b asic tastes, but have been especially documented with regard to the sw eet taste. This study addresses two issues: the difference in taste fi ber specificity between mammals and the related issue of species diffe rences in ability to taste sweeteners. These issues are illustrated by single taste fiber recordings from hamster, pig, rhesus monkey and ch impanzee. The hamster, a rodent, is used as an animal model in taste r esearch because of its especially well developed sweet taste sensitivi ty, but this study shows that many sweeteners do not taste sweet to th e hamster. The same is true for the pig, an ungulate, and from this po int of view quite unrelated to the human, but with similar internal an atomy, food preferences and diets, and therefore extensively used as a n animal model. Even the rhesus monkey, an old world primate belonging to the same superfamily as human, Catarrhina, shows some differences in its sweet tasting ability and taste fibers specificity although muc h less so than the previously mentioned species. The only species in w hich studies of its sense of taste have not yet revealed any differenc es from the human sense of taste, is the chimpanzee, which by most acc ounts is our closest relative. Copyright (C) 1996 Elsevier Science Ltd