Cortical representation of taste-modifying action of miracle fruit in humans

Time for Taste—A Review of the Early Cerebral Processing of Gustatory Perception

“…In the latter study, the P1 deflection was most obvious over frontal electrodes and its neuronal origin was estimated to be in the left insula and adjacent middle temporal gyrus, the ventromedial OFC, and the anterior cingulate cortex (Ohla et al 2010). These findings for P1 ERP latencies and localization are in agreement with observations from MEG studies showing that the bilateral insula responds to various tastes starting as early as 80–130 ms for salty and sour tastes (Kobayakawa et al 1996a; Mizoguchi et al 2002; Onoda et al 2005; Yamamoto et al 2006). The first negative gustatory deflection, the N1, has seldom been reported in the literature.…”

Miracle fruit: An alternative sugar substitute in sour beverages

“…Furthermore, according to Igarashi et al (2013), commercial sour liquids that mainly contain citric acid, products like lemonade, are more effective than acetic acid-based liquids in eliciting a perception of sweetness after the miracle fruit application. Yamamoto et al (2006) noted in their study that the response latency to citric acid after miracle fruit was essentially the same as that to sucrose. As for the peripheral mechanism of taste-modifying action of miracle fruits, miraculin stimulates sweet receptors under acidic conditions, i.e., acid information is not converted to sweet information, but both acid and sweet information are conveyed through the taste nerves to the brain.…”

“…2). Bartoshuk et al (1974) and Yamamoto et al (2006) also noted that the miracle fruit works by reducing the acidity and intensifies the sweetness of acid products; and Wong and Kern (2011) observed in their study that miracle fruit can successfully improve the sweetness of a low sugar popsicle to a magnitude that is similar to a sugar sweetened popsicle, without subsequent energy compensation for the absent calories. Moreover, the ingestion of 300 mg of miracle fruit before lemonade ingestion presented a sweet profile similar to sucralose (Fig.…”

“…Moreover, it showed high antioxidant activity (Du, Shen, Zhang, Prinyawiwatkul, & Xu, 2014). Studies have investigated developing miraculin into an alternative sweetener (Bartoshuk, Gentile, Moskowitz, & Meiselman, 1974;Wong & Kern, 2011;Igarashi et al 2013), its molecular mechanisms (Bartoshuk, 1987;Dzendolet, 1969;Paladino, Costantini, Colonna, & Facchiano, 2008Yamamoto et al 2006), and the engineering of other plants to produce miraculin (Sun, Cui, Ma, & Ezura, 2006;Sun, Kataoka, Yano, & Ezura, 2007;He at al. 2015).…”

Human sweet taste receptor mediates acid-induced sweetness of miraculin

“…In humans, a magnetoencephalography study showed that the response latency and the across-region response pattern of the cerebral cortex with citric acid application after tasting MCL are very similar to those with sucrose application. This finding suggests that the sourness component of citric acid is greatly diminished at the level of subcortical relays, and mainly sweetness information reaches the cortical primary taste area (24). However, the mechanism of MCL interaction with taste receptors remains unknown.…”