How Your Tongue Affects Your Food Preferences - New Study Finds

A new study has used Artificial intelligence (AI) and 3D imaging to show how the makeup of the tongue's surface differs in each individual. The findings shed new light on the distinctiveness of the human sense of taste. According to experts, "the research has huge potential for discovering individual food preferences and developing healthy food alternatives," as reported in Medical Xpress. The study, published in the journal 'Scientific Reports' has been helmed by two researchers from the School of Informatics, University of Edinburgh, and one from the School of Food Science and Nutrition, University of Leeds.

The study demonstrates the first possibility of tongue papillae serving "as a unique identifier," pointed out the authors. Papillae are the bump-like structures on the upper surface of your tongue - some of which contain your taste buds. The others have different functions relating to touch, texture, etc. The researchers developed a machine learning model for investigating the "detection and positioning" of papillae on tongues. The automated approach allowed them to "efficiently and accurately construct maps or tongue prints from given tongue masks."

The researchers fed the AI model with scans of 15 such 'tongue prints.' The tool managed to identify a specific individual based on a single papilla with about 48% accuracy. Moreover, gender and age could be identified based on a single papilla with an accuracy of around 67%-75%.

According to the report in The Guardian, "Studying how the distribution of papillae varies across individuals and populations could provide new insights into why certain people or groups like some foods more than others, and how tongue features correlate with various medical conditions."