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Speaker 1: All right, So I have a follow up question there.

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Speaker 1: First of all, am I correct in interpreting your answer

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Speaker 1: is saying that bitter tastes are learned tastes and therefore

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Speaker 1: more sophisticated, And therefore we have scientific evidence that dark

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Speaker 1: chocolate is better than white chocolate, for example.

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Speaker 2: That may be a stretch.

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Speaker 1: I'm taking that as a yes, and we're moving on.

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Speaker 2: Hi.

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Speaker 1: I'm Daniel. I'm a particle physicist. And I remember the

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Speaker 1: first time I smelled California. Hi.

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Speaker 3: I'm Kelly wider Smith. I'm a parasitologist. And I remember

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Speaker 3: the first time I felt the wind on my feet

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Speaker 3: as I put on my sandals when I got to

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Speaker 3: California for my PhD interview, And I remember thinking, I'm

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Speaker 3: never going to leave here because it was snowy and

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Speaker 3: cold and miserable in Ohio, and I just loved that

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Speaker 3: I could wear my chockos. But I did end up leaving.

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Speaker 3: But I don't remember the smell. What was the smell

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Speaker 3: of California?

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Speaker 1: And now I'm worried the smell is wind from other

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Speaker 1: people's feet.

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Speaker 3: Well, that doesn't sound very nice, and I wonder so

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Speaker 3: many people are leaving California No.

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Speaker 1: I used to visit my grandfather in Los Angeles when

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Speaker 1: I was a kid, and I remember walking out of

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Speaker 1: the airplane into Los Angeles and smelling it, and in

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Speaker 1: my memory it's got sort of floral notes to it

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Speaker 1: and a little bit of sea salt or a little

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Speaker 1: bit of something from the ocean, because I learned in

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Speaker 1: this interview you can't actually smell salt, but there's definitely

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Speaker 1: something about California. And when I returned later to interview

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Speaker 1: for a job, I remember getting off the airplane, this

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Speaker 1: time in Orange County and having that same scent memory

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Speaker 1: transporting me back to my childhood in those summers in

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Speaker 1: Los Angeles and being like, hey, this could be a

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Speaker 1: place I live. I like it here.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I remember when we lived in Santa Barbara. I

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Speaker 3: did love the smell of Santa Barbara. But I think

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Speaker 3: that's mostly the smell of the ocean.

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Speaker 1: And what is the smell of the ocean. What are

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Speaker 1: we smelling in the ocean? Is it fish? Is at

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Speaker 1: al g Is it fish poop? What's going on there?

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Speaker 3: It's probably algae dia. Tom's Yeah, I don't know. Maybe

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Speaker 3: I don't want to know. Maybe I enjoy it more

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Speaker 3: not knowing what is your favorite scent?

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Speaker 1: My favorite sent that's a great question. I'm not sure

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Speaker 1: what my favorite is. But up there is the smell

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Speaker 1: of onions and garlic in olive oil. You know, when

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Speaker 1: you start cooking something delicious and that smell hits you,

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Speaker 1: I'm like, hmm. Sometimes I feel like they should make

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Speaker 1: up perfume, you know, because if I want on a

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Speaker 1: date with a lady and she smelled like onions and

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Speaker 1: garlic and olive oil, I'd be like.

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Speaker 3: Ye, marry in a very wholesome way, right right, right,

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Speaker 3: here's the ring. Yeah, that is a good smell. That

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Speaker 3: always laughs because whenever he cooks I come in and go, oh,

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Speaker 3: it smells great. He's like, every time you say it

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Speaker 3: smells great, it's the same thing. And I'm like, well,

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Speaker 3: I'm consistent. It just still smells great. I love it.

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Speaker 1: There you go, And so what are your favorite smells?

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Speaker 3: Kelly love the smell right after a rain, and I

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Speaker 3: think that has something to do with bacteria and some

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Speaker 3: other stuff. I don't need to know. It just smells great.

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Speaker 3: And then I'd love the smell of rosemary. One of

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Speaker 3: the things that I loved about the place that I

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Speaker 3: lived in Davis, California. Is that there was a rosemary

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Speaker 3: bush and every day before i'd go to school, I'd

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Speaker 3: pull a bit off and snap it and smell it

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Speaker 3: before I went out. And then lavender and eucalyptus. Those

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Speaker 3: are very relaxing smells for me.

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Speaker 1: We have a whole hillside that's been colonized by a

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Speaker 1: rosemary bush, and when the sun hits it in the afternoon,

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Speaker 1: that wafts over. It's like overpoweringly amazing.

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Speaker 3: Oh, that's fantastic. Life is really good.

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Speaker 1: Sometimes life smells amazing.

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Speaker 3: Sometimes it does. It didn't in grad school when I

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Speaker 3: was jumping into dump trucks full of dead fish. But

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Speaker 3: there have been plenty of good smelling parts of my

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Speaker 3: life and I'm in one of them now, which is great.

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Speaker 1: I'm very glad your life doesn't stink.

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Speaker 3: Thanks. Yeah, I'm glad your life doesn't stink either.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: So on today's show, we have my friend Steve Munger.

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Speaker 3: He is an expert on smell and taste, and I

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Speaker 3: have asked him all sorts of stupid questions in the

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Speaker 3: like five plus years that I've known him, and I

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Speaker 3: am super excited to do that again today. So let's

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Speaker 3: go ahead and bring Steve on the show. Today's show

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Speaker 3: we have doctor Stephen Munger. He's professor and co director

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Speaker 3: of the Center for Smell and Taste Disorders at the

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Speaker 3: University of Virginia. Welcome to the show.

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Speaker 2: Thanks so much, really join the invitation.

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Speaker 3: I'm excited that I get the chance to chat with

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Speaker 3: you again. We've interacted a couple times about all sorts

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Speaker 3: of weird smell and taste topics, and I'm excited to

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Speaker 3: bring to our listeners your sort of weird knowledge on

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Speaker 3: smell and taste, weird and wonderful.

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Speaker 2: Thanks. Yeah, it was one of those instances back in

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Speaker 2: the day when Twitter was a lot more about finding

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Speaker 2: each other and getting interesting information. So it's a good result.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, yes, yes, Back when I used Twitter, we met Steve.

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Speaker 3: I had a question for him for our book soonish

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Speaker 3: and we've been in touch since.

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Speaker 1: So, Steve, You've got to ask do your family and

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Speaker 1: your kids describe your work as a professor of everything

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Speaker 1: stinky and delicious?

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Speaker 2: No, No, they don't, or at least they haven't until

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Speaker 2: this point.

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Speaker 3: But I always love getting the chance to ask you

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Speaker 3: about smell and taste stuff. And let's start with sort

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Speaker 3: of a very basic question, how well do we understand

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Speaker 3: smell and taste? Like, do we understand it microscopically?

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Speaker 2: We do, I would say we're still a bit behind

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Speaker 2: vision and hearing as far as our understanding of a

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Speaker 2: lot of the basic biology of it. But it's come

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Speaker 2: a long way, especially in the last thirty years. We

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Speaker 2: know what sells in the nose, which sells in the tongue,

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Speaker 2: detect odors and taste. We have a good sense of

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Speaker 2: everything from the protein receptors on their surfaces to the

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Speaker 2: way they connect to the brain and start to organize signals,

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Speaker 2: so that we can actually make sense of our detection

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Speaker 2: of all those chemicals that are in our food or

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Speaker 2: in our environment. But it's still a lot left to

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Speaker 2: be worked out, particularly in the way that one distinguishes

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Speaker 2: different types of odors or tastes, or conversely puts them together,

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Speaker 2: because of course, you don't really encounter single odor molecules,

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Speaker 2: which we call odorant or single taste molecules, except yeah,

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Speaker 2: vicetherian cotton candy, you're getting pretty much pure sugar, But

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Speaker 2: usually you're encountering them as mixtures. A flower has hundreds

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Speaker 2: of different compounds that you're smelling at the time foods

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Speaker 2: have tastes and odors that your brain is trying to

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Speaker 2: put those signals together. So how we pull apart the

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Speaker 2: different components and then put them back together so our

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Speaker 2: brain can make sense of them and we can then

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Speaker 2: react in an appropriate way. There's still a lot of

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Speaker 2: questions in those areas.

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Speaker 1: And so for vision, we have something of a cartoon understanding,

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Speaker 1: at least I do of how this works. You know,

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Speaker 1: photons hit these proteins in your eye, they get absorbed,

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Speaker 1: they flip some switch, they send a signal of your

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Speaker 1: optic nerve. Your brain gives you an experience of a color.

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Speaker 1: Do we have an analogous picture for smell and taste?

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Speaker 1: Can you walk us through microscopically what happens from when

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Speaker 1: that cotton candy molecule hits your nose or your tongue.

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Speaker 1: What's going on?

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Speaker 2: Of course, it depends a little bit on whether you're

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Speaker 2: talking about vertebrates or in vertebrates. There are amazing amounts

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Speaker 2: of similarities in the organization, but a lot of the

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Speaker 2: molecular players are quite different.

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Speaker 1: Do invertebrates like cotton candy.

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Speaker 2: Most insects and others like sugars are attracted to at

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Speaker 2: least certain types of sugars, and they will avoid compounds

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Speaker 2: that we perceive of is bitter. But how they do

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Speaker 2: that can be a little bit varied. If we think

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Speaker 2: of smell, what we're working with are millions of cells

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Speaker 2: in our case and sort of the roof of the

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Speaker 2: nasal cavity. These are neurons nerve cells that have one

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Speaker 2: end projecting out into the environment, basically within a mucous

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Speaker 2: layer within your nasal cavity. So when you sniff something

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Speaker 2: or when odors come back from your throat while you're

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Speaker 2: eating and get up into that nasal cavity, they bind

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Speaker 2: with receptor molecules that fit into the family known as

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Speaker 2: G protein coupled receptors. So these are ones that recognize

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Speaker 2: the odor molecule and then initiate a biochemical cascade within

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Speaker 2: the cell that changes the electrical activity of that sell.

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Speaker 2: Those nerve cells then send messages back through the skull

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Speaker 2: to the brain where they interact with nerve cells of

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Speaker 2: the brain and create this process.

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Speaker 1: So folks like me who are not adept to chemistry,

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Speaker 1: I want to understand what you mean when you say

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Speaker 1: recognize those molecules, Like I'm imagining some molecules sticking up

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Speaker 1: above the mucus and another molecule comes along, and if

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Speaker 1: they have the right sort of shape and electrons in

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Speaker 1: the right places, they can bind together. Is that what's happening,

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Speaker 1: Like they're interacting chemically.

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Speaker 2: Exactly, So we'd call it docking or binding, where the

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Speaker 2: odor molecule actually fits within a pocket that is formed

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Speaker 2: by the protein strands of the receptor and causes a

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Speaker 2: conformational change. The receptor protein changes its shape, which allows

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Speaker 2: it basically to flip a switch inside the cell, so

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Speaker 2: it's working across the membrane to initiate this cascade. And

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Speaker 2: then one interesting thing about how we perceive ots, there's

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Speaker 2: not a particular receptor just for this molecule and just

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Speaker 2: for that molecule. In humans, we have about four hundred

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Speaker 2: of these receptors. In rodents could be one thousand, fifteen hundred,

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Speaker 2: depending on the species. But even with those numbers, you

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Speaker 2: can imagine that would be a pretty limited repertoire of

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Speaker 2: chemicals you could detect if it was really that one

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Speaker 2: to one thing. What it turns out to be is

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Speaker 2: that each receptor generally can recognize a number of different molecules.

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Speaker 2: Oftentimes they may even be chemically distinct in their structure,

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Speaker 2: and each individual odorant molecule can bind two multiple receptors,

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Speaker 2: and so what you're getting is really a pattern of activation.

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Speaker 2: The molecule A may turn on receptors one, five, and six,

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Speaker 2: molecule B may turn on receptors three, five, and six,

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Speaker 2: and that, because of the way those receptors and cells

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Speaker 2: that express them are connected to the brain, gives you

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Speaker 2: different patterns of activation that you then learn to associate

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Speaker 2: with molecule A or molecule B.

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Speaker 1: So let me see if I'm understanding The picture I

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Speaker 1: was imagining before was something sort of like a lock

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Speaker 1: and key mechanism, where you know, the dog poop molecule

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Speaker 1: floats up and connects with something in my nose and

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Speaker 1: is able to connect in and activate that and as

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Speaker 1: you say, actually change the shape of that which triggers

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Speaker 1: some signal down the brain. But now you're telling me that, like,

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Speaker 1: there are lots of different keys that can turn that lock,

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Speaker 1: and that one key also can turn multiple locks, so

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Speaker 1: that everything in our environment can turn on several signals,

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Speaker 1: and that each signal can actually be turned on by

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Speaker 1: several different kinds of things. So dog poop and cat

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Speaker 1: poop might turn on the same signal, but they also

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Speaker 1: might turn on a different combination of signals.

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Speaker 2: Absolutely, you got it.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, So you know when I look around my room,

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Speaker 3: there's lots of different wavelengths, lots of different colors hitting

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Speaker 3: my eye. Is smell more complicated vision? And does the

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Speaker 3: brain process it in different ways?

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Speaker 2: I don't know if i'd say it's more complicated, but

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Speaker 2: it is a little different, particularly because there's a bit

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Speaker 2: of a learning aspect. You're not born knowing what the

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Speaker 2: utterance of pizza is. You smell the pizza and your

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Speaker 2: brain certain number of receptors are activated by those odor

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Speaker 2: molecules that come from the pizza your sniffing, and you

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Speaker 2: learn that that pattern of activity means pizza, while another

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Speaker 2: one that may have some but not all of the

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Speaker 2: molecules in common means rotting fish. And you know what

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Speaker 2: to do with the mind because there can be.

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Speaker 1: Overlaps, especially if you're a baby in Iceland and they

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Speaker 1: like rotting fish pizza.

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Speaker 3: Right, My PhD involves a lot of rotting fish.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, just in Iceland. This summer for our conference, which

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Speaker 2: is fout, I did not eat in any of the

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Speaker 2: rotting fish there though.

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Speaker 1: Beautiful country, the beautiful country, wonderful people.

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Speaker 2: Yes, oh it's stunning, stunning.

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Speaker 1: So, Steve, you know that there's a common philosophy question

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Speaker 1: which is also a staple in dorm rooms at three am,

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Speaker 1: which is like, when I see red, do you see

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Speaker 1: the same red? How do we know? And what you

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Speaker 1: just said suggests a similar question about pizza, like when

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Speaker 1: I'm smelling pizza, is somebody else experiencing the same thing?

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Speaker 1: And my understanding is that the qualitya of seeing red,

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Speaker 1: or the quality of experiencing that signal from your nose

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Speaker 1: is something we don't have a great philosophical handle on.

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Speaker 1: We don't know how to compare. We can't experience somebody

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Speaker 1: else's internal subjective experience. Is there an equivalent question for smell?

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Speaker 1: You know? Is there this sort of marry in the

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Speaker 1: red room philosophical study about smell and taste?

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Speaker 2: I think from a practical point of view, you can say, indeed,

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Speaker 2: people have different perceptions of the same odor mixture, and

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Speaker 2: one of the classic ones is slantro. Some of you

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Speaker 2: might really like slantro and like sort of that green grassiness,

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Speaker 2: of a brightness of it that it can add to foods,

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Speaker 2: and others may hit it and say nope, that's soapy.

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Speaker 2: That ends up being less likely a genetic difference in

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Speaker 2: one particular odent receptor that seems to be changed in

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Speaker 2: its responsiveness to those soapy odor components. Those people who

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Speaker 2: get the grassiness as the primary b versus get the

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Speaker 2: soapiness is the primary odor component, are differing in the

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Speaker 2: ability of their odor receptors in their nose to respond

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Speaker 2: to that array of chemicals. So the chemicals are the same,

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Speaker 2: but the way someone's perceiving it, and of course the

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Speaker 2: way that impacts their interest in ingesting that changes quite

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Speaker 2: a bit. They're also what we hit a variety of

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Speaker 2: other genetic variants we call specific anosmias, and these are

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Speaker 2: ones where you may have a mutated odent receptor that

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Speaker 2: is the primary receptor for particular compound and you just

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Speaker 2: can't smell it and someone else can't. So endosternone, which

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Speaker 2: is a pig pheromone from male pigs, but there are

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Speaker 2: related chemicals in it they're using cleaning products and other things,

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Speaker 2: is a classic of that. There are a lot of people,

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Speaker 2: myself included. You can put a big vat in front

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Speaker 2: of my nose. I have no ideas there, and there

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Speaker 2: are other people like my wife who get even remotely

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Speaker 2: close to it, and you know, oh my god, that's awful.

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Speaker 2: And there are those types of genetic differences. We did

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Speaker 2: a thing with a bunch of winemakers recently and spiked

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Speaker 2: identical wines, one unspiked one with another compound called rotundo in,

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Speaker 2: which is a black peppery odorant, and there were maybe

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Speaker 2: twenty percent of the people in that room that could

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Speaker 2: not actually tell the differences between the wine, even though

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Speaker 2: in that case I could, and it was quite pronounced pepperiness.

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Speaker 2: From that respect, there are differences now that is a

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Speaker 2: little different than what you brought up with the are

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Speaker 2: we seeing the same red wavelength getting the same perception

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Speaker 2: of what red is? Although if I recall, there is

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Speaker 2: a fairly common mutation in the green cone option that

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Speaker 2: actually shifts the wavelength response a little bit in that

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Speaker 2: and so in that case you can imagine two people

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Speaker 2: seeing slightly different shades of green. But still I go,

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Speaker 2: that's the grass on.

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Speaker 1: And so as somebody who is director of a center

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Speaker 1: on smell disorders, would you categorize somebody who can't appreciate

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Speaker 1: cilantro as having a variant or like an issue, like

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Speaker 1: a disorder. I mean, this is something we need to treat.

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Speaker 1: All these folks out there are like missing out on

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Speaker 1: one of the joys of life.

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Speaker 2: Colleague of mind Doron lance At once made the statement,

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Speaker 2: no one is norma osmic. We all different. That there

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Speaker 2: are four hundred potentially active odent receptor genes in the

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Speaker 2: human and all of us probably have one or two

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Speaker 2: or maybe more that are mutatd in such a way

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Speaker 2: that that changes the way that we respond to the

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Speaker 2: molecules that those receptors would normally spawn to. So we're

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Speaker 2: all seeing something a little different. And I do think

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Speaker 2: that that is distinct from people who have a smell

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Speaker 2: or taste loss, or distortions or phantoms that disrupt their

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Speaker 2: ability to really more globally interact with food, interact with

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Speaker 2: each other, perceive the world around them, or have sort

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Speaker 2: of underlying long term off tastes or equal smells or

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Speaker 2: other things that their brain is constructing. Those are the

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Speaker 2: ones where I put them into the category of disorders,

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Speaker 2: as opposed to we have blondes and brunettes and blue

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Speaker 2: eyes and brown eyes and that's more of what I've

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Speaker 2: put a specific in osmia.

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Speaker 3: So you mentioned wine. I enjoy wine, but when I

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Speaker 3: read the descriptions on the back, I call both. When

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Speaker 3: I read the back, I'm like, what percent of people

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Speaker 3: who drink wine can taste all of the notes that

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Speaker 3: are listed on the back? Am I in my or

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Speaker 3: the majority of not being able to appreciate a complex

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Speaker 3: flavor profile.

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Speaker 2: I don't know if you are in the minority majority.

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Speaker 2: I can't say that. I am certainly is hugely skilled

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Speaker 2: as people that do that professionally, But part of it

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Speaker 2: is also training. I mean, certainly a summer or winemaker

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Speaker 2: or brewmaster or whatever generally going to have a pretty

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Speaker 2: functional sense of smell and taste in order to be

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Speaker 2: able to get most of the signals that they want

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Speaker 2: to be able to perceive. But the ability to sort

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Speaker 2: of pull out strawberry and lead pencil and black current

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Speaker 2: and whatever others. Part of that is because there's been

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Speaker 2: a standardization of the naming of certain odor perceptions. In

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Speaker 2: the context of wine, beer has its own beer wheel,

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Speaker 2: coffee has its own coffee wheel, so that when someone

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Speaker 2: says lead pencil, they are describing pretty close to the

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Speaker 2: same odorant molecules present there that someone else is. They're

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Speaker 2: trying to make it a common language using more descriptive

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Speaker 2: things rather than saying Islam molassatype or whatever other chemical

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Speaker 2: name you might want to come up with. The other

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Speaker 2: thing that people are really skilled is they practice a lot.

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Speaker 2: This is a attention to detail, This is memory, This

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Speaker 2: is like learning the language. All those aspects go into

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Speaker 2: it too, that allow you to sort of focus on.

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Speaker 2: So if you get someone who trains you that, Okay,

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Speaker 2: these six ones all have this flavor of characteristic and

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Speaker 2: those six ones do not, it becomes a lot easier

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Speaker 2: to start to pick them out, and then once you've

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Speaker 2: done that, it's easier to recognize it as well. So

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Speaker 2: I think it's more practice.

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Speaker 3: Than anything I need to switch jobs.

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Speaker 1: I think that probably also tells us something about the

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Speaker 1: experience of these smells. You know, you're training somebody to

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Speaker 1: recognize as certain responses. You're helping distinguish between black paper

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Speaker 1: and current and whatever. There must be a lot sort

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Speaker 1: of in the neurobiology of smell behind you know, the

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Speaker 1: actual chemistry of the receptors as well.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, which is an interesting contrast with taste in some ways.

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Speaker 2: And that taste is much more innate. You give babies sugar,

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Speaker 2: they're going to smack their lips, and if they're old enough,

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Speaker 2: they're going to smile and they're going to want to

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Speaker 2: eat more. You give them something that's plain bitter compound,

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Speaker 2: they're going to scrunch up their face and put their

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Speaker 2: tongue out and try to sort of spit it out.

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Speaker 2: And they're born with that. I mean, we learn over

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Speaker 2: time to give context to that. We learn that in

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Speaker 2: some cases bitterness is not definitely poison. If it's our

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Speaker 2: French rose coffee or our ipa beer or Belgian and

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Speaker 2: dive or whatever it might be. We learn that we

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Speaker 2: can appreciate that as part of a complex flavor profile

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Speaker 2: in a safe way, but innately bitter being spitted out

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Speaker 2: and sweet meaning go ahead and adjust it. There's an

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Speaker 2: energy source.

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Speaker 3: There, all right. So here we have a question from

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Speaker 3: a listener that actually inspired this whole episode. So let's

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Speaker 3: go ahead and listen.

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Speaker 4: Hi, Daniel and Kelly. I had a question growing up

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Speaker 4: and going into the woods. I was always told that

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Speaker 4: if you put a plant in your mouth and it's bitter,

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Speaker 4: spit it out, because it's likely poisonous as an adult.

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Speaker 4: This raises questions in my mind, why are poisonous plants bitter?

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Speaker 4: Did humans evolve the taste of bitterness exclusively to the

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Speaker 4: tech poisonous plants? But then you got the question of

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Speaker 4: coffee is bitter and we all know how that goes

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Speaker 4: in the morning, But how bitter is too bitter to

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Speaker 4: be poisonous because we know everything in moderation. And then

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Speaker 4: there's the did the boy scout leader just tell me

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Speaker 4: this because he didn't want to see what all of

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Speaker 4: us were trying to put in our mouth because we

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Speaker 4: were super kids. But I have this question. I was

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Speaker 4: hoping you could help me out and figure out why

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Speaker 4: are we able to detect poison as bitterer?

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Speaker 2: Thank you very much. We think that the sense of

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Speaker 2: bitterness has evolved in order to avoid toxins. That seems

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Speaker 2: to be common that compounds that we would perceive of

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Speaker 2: as bitder are also aversive to a lot of other animals,

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Speaker 2: even if they're not using the same protein molecules to

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Speaker 2: detect them that mammals are. So that's very common. But

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Speaker 2: obviously we can learn in context that bitterness may also

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Speaker 2: be something that can be attractive if it's put together

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Speaker 2: with other things that we like. Coffee is a good example.

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Speaker 2: There are a lot of compounds in coffee, including caffeine,

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Speaker 2: that on their own are bitter and you would not

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Speaker 2: like them. No one would like them. Put in the

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Speaker 2: kind of coffee, not only do you have the appealing

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Speaker 2: aroma of coffee, the pharmacologic buzz of the caffeine. The

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Speaker 2: fact that you enjoy going to the coffee shop with

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Speaker 2: your friends is a part of a ritual every morning.

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Speaker 2: The fact that you don't see a bunch of dead

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Speaker 2: people laying around that coffee shops they've just been poisoned.

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Speaker 2: All these things give you context that tells you that

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Speaker 2: in that particular situation, the bitterness is positive and a

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Speaker 2: lot of people learn to like better. I like darker

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Speaker 2: roasted coffees and I like highly hopped beers. That it's

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Speaker 2: appealing to me. But if I took those compounds in

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Speaker 2: and of themselves, out of that context, I wouldn't. So

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Speaker 2: that's definitely the case. It's interesting that both for the

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Speaker 2: receptors that respond to sweet and umami or savory tastes

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Speaker 2: amino acid tastes as well as to bitter tasting compounds

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Speaker 2: They're not restricted to the taste cells of the mouth,

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Speaker 2: the ones that actually lead to taste receptions. They're found

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Speaker 2: all over the body. Bitter receptors are in the gut,

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Speaker 2: they're in the heart, they are in the thyroid gland.

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Speaker 2: And there's a lot of question if are these proteins

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Speaker 2: potentially responding to ingested toxins and then allowing for some

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Speaker 2: sort of physiological protective response if you start to build

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Speaker 2: up too much, or could they be just repurposed in

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Speaker 2: a way that allows the same protein to respond to

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Speaker 2: indigenous signaling molecules within the body and also be used

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Speaker 2: when it's connected up to the taste system, to be

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Speaker 2: used for detecting bitter tastes.

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Speaker 1: All right, follow up questions there. First of all, am

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Speaker 1: I correct in interpreting your answer is saying that bitter

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Speaker 1: tastes are learned taste and therefore more sophisticated, and therefore

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Speaker 1: we have scientific evidence that dark chocolate is better than

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Speaker 1: white chocolate for example.

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Speaker 2: That may be a stretch.

439
00:24:15,240 --> 00:24:17,120
Speaker 1: I'm taking that as a yes, and we're moving on.

440
00:24:17,960 --> 00:24:21,080
Speaker 1: My real question is a comment on the idea of

441
00:24:21,119 --> 00:24:23,800
Speaker 1: having smell receptors in the gut and in the heart.

442
00:24:23,840 --> 00:24:26,800
Speaker 1: And other places in your body as it relates to

443
00:24:26,840 --> 00:24:29,800
Speaker 1: the experience of smell. Is there a possibility that we

444
00:24:29,960 --> 00:24:33,760
Speaker 1: are experiencing those flavors in our gut or in other

445
00:24:33,840 --> 00:24:36,160
Speaker 1: parts of our body and it's contributing to our experience.

446
00:24:36,200 --> 00:24:37,960
Speaker 1: Are we tasting inside our body?

447
00:24:38,320 --> 00:24:42,440
Speaker 2: That's a very common question. The answer is quite conclusively no.

448
00:24:42,840 --> 00:24:43,400
Speaker 1: Oh man.

449
00:24:44,720 --> 00:24:47,040
Speaker 2: So I'll give you example. So the sweet taste receptor,

450
00:24:47,119 --> 00:24:50,880
Speaker 2: this is a protein. It's actually a protein complex called

451
00:24:51,119 --> 00:24:54,040
Speaker 2: T one R two T one R three two members

452
00:24:54,080 --> 00:24:57,520
Speaker 2: the type one taste receptor family. These in the mouth.

453
00:24:57,920 --> 00:25:01,040
Speaker 2: They are responding not only to sugars, but to anything

454
00:25:01,080 --> 00:25:03,800
Speaker 2: that you perceive of as sweet. It actually activates this

455
00:25:03,880 --> 00:25:06,840
Speaker 2: protein complex. It has lots of different binding sides differently,

456
00:25:07,119 --> 00:25:12,080
Speaker 2: so synthetic sweeteners like aspertain so the blue packet saccharin,

457
00:25:12,200 --> 00:25:16,520
Speaker 2: the pink packet, sucrolos, the yellow one proteins that are

458
00:25:16,520 --> 00:25:20,119
Speaker 2: found in a number of tropical berries and fruits that

459
00:25:20,359 --> 00:25:25,680
Speaker 2: are highly potent, thousands of times more potent than sugar. Lead.

460
00:25:26,119 --> 00:25:29,240
Speaker 2: One reason the kids eat lead paint is lead acetate

461
00:25:29,280 --> 00:25:33,080
Speaker 2: taste sweet, and that activates that same receptor. So all

462
00:25:33,119 --> 00:25:36,160
Speaker 2: of those compounds are giving you a perception of sweetness

463
00:25:36,160 --> 00:25:38,760
Speaker 2: because they turn on that receptor. That same receptor is

464
00:25:38,800 --> 00:25:42,240
Speaker 2: in your gut and specifically in a population of cells

465
00:25:42,280 --> 00:25:49,240
Speaker 2: called ntraantigrin l cells that are involved in glucose responses,

466
00:25:49,680 --> 00:25:54,359
Speaker 2: allowing your metabolic systems to respond to the ingestion of

467
00:25:54,359 --> 00:25:57,000
Speaker 2: the sugar load. So let's go back to cotton candy.

468
00:25:57,000 --> 00:25:59,159
Speaker 2: You eat that cotton candy, the sugar goes through your

469
00:25:59,160 --> 00:26:03,240
Speaker 2: digestive system down into your small intestine. Those glucose molecules

470
00:26:03,320 --> 00:26:07,440
Speaker 2: now interact with the sweet taste receptor, the sitting inside

471
00:26:07,880 --> 00:26:12,560
Speaker 2: surface of your intestine. That triggers a response that elicits,

472
00:26:12,600 --> 00:26:16,560
Speaker 2: amongst other things, a peptide hormone called glp one glucagun

473
00:26:16,680 --> 00:26:19,800
Speaker 2: like peptide one, which probably everybody now knows about because

474
00:26:19,800 --> 00:26:24,879
Speaker 2: of ozembic and govi, which is basically mimics of that peptide,

475
00:26:25,080 --> 00:26:27,000
Speaker 2: and that pep pi can then act on the brain,

476
00:26:27,080 --> 00:26:30,679
Speaker 2: It can act on the pancreas to adjust the insulin

477
00:26:30,800 --> 00:26:35,760
Speaker 2: release and satiety and things like that. So the receptor

478
00:26:36,080 --> 00:26:40,320
Speaker 2: is mediating that physiological response in the gut, it's mediating

479
00:26:40,359 --> 00:26:43,600
Speaker 2: the detection of taste in the mouth. But why is

480
00:26:43,640 --> 00:26:46,440
Speaker 2: it not giving you taste in the gut. It's because

481
00:26:47,160 --> 00:26:51,119
Speaker 2: the nerves that connect that part of the gut to

482
00:26:51,200 --> 00:26:53,800
Speaker 2: the brain go to a different area than the nerves

483
00:26:53,800 --> 00:26:56,159
Speaker 2: that connect the part of the tongue. So how you

484
00:26:56,280 --> 00:27:00,480
Speaker 2: are detecting it is the same. It's the same lock

485
00:27:01,359 --> 00:27:06,040
Speaker 2: in those two different places, but the doors that they

486
00:27:06,080 --> 00:27:07,960
Speaker 2: are in are very different.

487
00:27:08,320 --> 00:27:11,080
Speaker 3: So Daniel and I will asking you questions have been

488
00:27:11,480 --> 00:27:14,760
Speaker 3: alternating between saying smell and taste, and we haven't been consistent,

489
00:27:15,280 --> 00:27:18,200
Speaker 3: But those are different. How does our body respond to

490
00:27:18,240 --> 00:27:20,160
Speaker 3: smell and taste differently? Or is it okay that we're

491
00:27:20,160 --> 00:27:21,679
Speaker 3: being sort of loose with those terms.

492
00:27:22,280 --> 00:27:25,480
Speaker 2: No, I think it's something we do want to distinguish,

493
00:27:25,560 --> 00:27:29,240
Speaker 2: and maybe it's good to briefly define them explicitly. So

494
00:27:29,400 --> 00:27:33,320
Speaker 2: smell is going to be at least in humans. The

495
00:27:33,400 --> 00:27:38,280
Speaker 2: detection of volatile chemicals, whether coming through the nares of

496
00:27:38,320 --> 00:27:40,640
Speaker 2: your nose the front, or as you sniff, that would

497
00:27:40,720 --> 00:27:44,840
Speaker 2: be called that orthonasal faction, or as you're chewing food

498
00:27:44,920 --> 00:27:48,720
Speaker 2: or drinking drink. Otor molecules that volatize can come up

499
00:27:48,760 --> 00:27:51,720
Speaker 2: back through your throat and enter your nasal cavity. That way,

500
00:27:51,760 --> 00:27:53,960
Speaker 2: we call that retro nasal olfaction.

501
00:27:53,960 --> 00:27:56,560
Speaker 3: From the back, and volatile just means it goes into.

502
00:27:56,400 --> 00:27:58,560
Speaker 2: The air, and volatile just means it is light enough

503
00:27:58,560 --> 00:28:00,840
Speaker 2: to go in the air. Okay, the receptors are all

504
00:28:00,840 --> 00:28:05,560
Speaker 2: in the nose. In lower primitive mammals, you're going to

505
00:28:05,640 --> 00:28:09,520
Speaker 2: have also another variant called the vomer and nasal organ.

506
00:28:09,560 --> 00:28:11,960
Speaker 2: This is part of the accessoril factory system that can

507
00:28:12,000 --> 00:28:14,959
Speaker 2: not only respond to some volatile chemicals, but also peptides

508
00:28:15,119 --> 00:28:17,560
Speaker 2: can serve as olfactory stimuli.

509
00:28:17,760 --> 00:28:21,200
Speaker 3: There So the vomero nasal organ. When snakes are sensing

510
00:28:21,240 --> 00:28:23,720
Speaker 3: their environment, they stick it into the romero nasal organ

511
00:28:23,760 --> 00:28:26,119
Speaker 3: to like figure out cent trails. Is that right? Can

512
00:28:26,160 --> 00:28:28,240
Speaker 3: we go a little more into detail about what that does?

513
00:28:28,640 --> 00:28:32,880
Speaker 2: Yes, so snake's doing it a little differently. It tends

514
00:28:32,960 --> 00:28:37,240
Speaker 2: to require contact in mice. In rants, the mouse will

515
00:28:37,280 --> 00:28:40,120
Speaker 2: generally stick its nose right in whatever that odor source is,

516
00:28:40,160 --> 00:28:43,720
Speaker 2: whether it's the glandeurth, secretions of a mate or a

517
00:28:43,760 --> 00:28:47,040
Speaker 2: fool of urine or what might be. These are often

518
00:28:47,120 --> 00:28:51,880
Speaker 2: social signals that can be sex or aggression, pheromones or

519
00:28:52,000 --> 00:28:56,080
Speaker 2: predator cues or such. There's within the vomer a nasal organ,

520
00:28:56,120 --> 00:28:58,960
Speaker 2: which is just adjacent to the nasal cavity. There's a

521
00:28:59,040 --> 00:29:02,480
Speaker 2: blood vessel that will pump those molecules into the organ

522
00:29:02,520 --> 00:29:06,120
Speaker 2: where they can interact with these specialized olfactory neurons in

523
00:29:06,160 --> 00:29:08,360
Speaker 2: that goes back to a slightly different part of the brain.

524
00:29:08,520 --> 00:29:11,880
Speaker 2: Humans don't have that organ, so it's a little bit different.

525
00:29:12,920 --> 00:29:14,920
Speaker 2: So you have all those and those are all located

526
00:29:15,040 --> 00:29:17,680
Speaker 2: in the nose and they project to specific areas of

527
00:29:17,680 --> 00:29:24,680
Speaker 2: the brain. Taste is very specifically the detection of non

528
00:29:24,840 --> 00:29:28,960
Speaker 2: volatile compounds like sugars and salts, and acids and amino

529
00:29:29,040 --> 00:29:32,400
Speaker 2: acids and a variety of compounds that can be perceived

530
00:29:32,400 --> 00:29:36,480
Speaker 2: of the spinner. They activate cells that sit within taste

531
00:29:36,520 --> 00:29:39,000
Speaker 2: buds for the most part, which are basically just little

532
00:29:39,040 --> 00:29:42,880
Speaker 2: onion like collections of cells, and those are on the tongue,

533
00:29:43,480 --> 00:29:45,920
Speaker 2: certain taste papillo, some of the bumps in your tongue,

534
00:29:46,000 --> 00:29:49,719
Speaker 2: and they're also in the soft palate in my favorite

535
00:29:49,760 --> 00:29:53,520
Speaker 2: German word, the geschmack Strifen, which is the taste strip,

536
00:29:53,840 --> 00:29:55,800
Speaker 2: which a bunch of taste buds in the soft pealet

537
00:29:56,080 --> 00:29:58,520
Speaker 2: and then there also are some in the varyingx throat.

538
00:29:58,720 --> 00:30:02,000
Speaker 2: Those are connected to different parts of the brain. Specifically

539
00:30:02,000 --> 00:30:05,880
Speaker 2: to the brain stem, and that's carrying taste information. There's

540
00:30:05,920 --> 00:30:09,600
Speaker 2: a third chemical sense both smell and taste or detecting chemicals.

541
00:30:09,640 --> 00:30:13,680
Speaker 2: The third chemical sense is known as chemisthesis, and chemos

542
00:30:13,760 --> 00:30:16,160
Speaker 2: thesis is one you probably haven't heard the name of,

543
00:30:16,280 --> 00:30:21,400
Speaker 2: but you've experienced, and that is when chemicals that are

544
00:30:21,440 --> 00:30:27,640
Speaker 2: often in spices or herbs will sort of hijacked sensors

545
00:30:27,680 --> 00:30:32,400
Speaker 2: for temperature or pain or vibration. So capsayasin and a

546
00:30:32,440 --> 00:30:38,920
Speaker 2: hot chili pepper, menthol in, mint, santial in, sesshue, peppercorns,

547
00:30:39,360 --> 00:30:42,760
Speaker 2: these are going to basically be naturally current chemicals that

548
00:30:42,840 --> 00:30:47,960
Speaker 2: make this is generally trigeminal nerve sensors feel like they've

549
00:30:48,000 --> 00:30:52,240
Speaker 2: been activated. So capsaicin makes it feel like there's warmth

550
00:30:52,240 --> 00:30:54,400
Speaker 2: there even though there's no change in temperature because it's

551
00:30:54,400 --> 00:30:57,720
Speaker 2: turning on a heat receptor. Menthol is cooling because it's

552
00:30:57,720 --> 00:30:59,880
Speaker 2: turning on a cold sensitive receptor.

553
00:31:00,320 --> 00:31:02,120
Speaker 1: Did you say there was one that triggers a sense

554
00:31:02,120 --> 00:31:03,160
Speaker 1: of vibration.

555
00:31:03,080 --> 00:31:05,920
Speaker 2: Yeah, the sansial in such one peppercorns, which are actually

556
00:31:05,920 --> 00:31:09,280
Speaker 2: flower bites, give see this little tingling aspect to it.

557
00:31:09,520 --> 00:31:11,600
Speaker 1: I see, So it's different from capsas and it's not

558
00:31:11,600 --> 00:31:12,200
Speaker 1: a warm.

559
00:31:12,040 --> 00:31:13,920
Speaker 2: It seems to have a bit of a warmth aspect

560
00:31:13,920 --> 00:31:15,760
Speaker 2: to it as well. So some of these can be

561
00:31:15,800 --> 00:31:18,680
Speaker 2: working across but their compounds in ginger and compounds and

562
00:31:18,960 --> 00:31:22,120
Speaker 2: eucalyptus and all these types of that will do this

563
00:31:22,200 --> 00:31:22,680
Speaker 2: type of thing.

564
00:31:22,920 --> 00:31:25,920
Speaker 1: And is the chemical mechanism the same, the sort of

565
00:31:25,920 --> 00:31:29,360
Speaker 1: lock and key structure the same for all these different

566
00:31:29,480 --> 00:31:30,480
Speaker 1: kinds of experiences.

567
00:31:30,760 --> 00:31:34,720
Speaker 2: They are, although in these cases they're primarily attaching to

568
00:31:34,840 --> 00:31:40,280
Speaker 2: ion channels, which are proteins that can be bound by

569
00:31:40,360 --> 00:31:42,760
Speaker 2: an external chemical But then they open up and they

570
00:31:42,880 --> 00:31:46,200
Speaker 2: let charge particles fly across the rent, so they're not

571
00:31:46,280 --> 00:31:50,400
Speaker 2: triggering an intracellular biochemical cascade. They're actually changing the electrical

572
00:31:50,440 --> 00:31:55,440
Speaker 2: properties of the cells directly. So just different families proteins,

573
00:31:56,560 --> 00:32:00,360
Speaker 2: but they do all come together in this all comes

574
00:32:00,400 --> 00:32:02,440
Speaker 2: together in the brain, and that's what we call flavor.

575
00:32:03,000 --> 00:32:10,240
Speaker 2: So flavor is smell plus taste. You can bring chemosthesis

576
00:32:10,240 --> 00:32:16,240
Speaker 2: into that. You can also impact flavor by site. For example,

577
00:32:16,600 --> 00:32:20,760
Speaker 2: if either you remember crystal pepsi or any of these

578
00:32:20,880 --> 00:32:23,400
Speaker 2: clear colas that came out a number of years ago.

579
00:32:24,560 --> 00:32:26,280
Speaker 2: One of the problems was is you looked at it,

580
00:32:26,440 --> 00:32:30,360
Speaker 2: you expected a seltzer or a sprite or whatever or not,

581
00:32:30,840 --> 00:32:32,920
Speaker 2: and then you drank it and there was a real

582
00:32:32,960 --> 00:32:37,040
Speaker 2: disconnect between your expectation and what your taste and smell

583
00:32:37,200 --> 00:32:42,120
Speaker 2: was telling you. So sometimes those visual cues temperature, and

584
00:32:42,200 --> 00:32:46,720
Speaker 2: other things can impact how your flavors perceive. But one

585
00:32:46,760 --> 00:32:51,440
Speaker 2: of the big term confusions is how I would say

586
00:32:51,440 --> 00:32:54,880
Speaker 2: the general population uses the word taste versus how we

587
00:32:55,360 --> 00:32:59,160
Speaker 2: face as smell scientists use it. When we as scientists

588
00:32:59,240 --> 00:33:03,280
Speaker 2: use it, we mean just those limited sweet, sour, salty, bitter,

589
00:33:03,360 --> 00:33:08,200
Speaker 2: umami tastes happening in the mouth. Patient comes they've lost

590
00:33:08,200 --> 00:33:12,160
Speaker 2: their sense of smell. They may say, I can't taste anything.

591
00:33:12,200 --> 00:33:14,960
Speaker 2: It all tastes really flat. If you were to test

592
00:33:15,000 --> 00:33:17,200
Speaker 2: them with putting sugar on their tongue or salt on

593
00:33:17,240 --> 00:33:20,880
Speaker 2: their tongue, it probably would work really well. But what

594
00:33:20,920 --> 00:33:25,360
Speaker 2: they've lost is the complexity of flavor that comes from

595
00:33:26,160 --> 00:33:29,080
Speaker 2: the odors that arise from those foods. The ability to

596
00:33:29,160 --> 00:33:33,200
Speaker 2: distinguish a lemon from a lime if you're not looking

597
00:33:33,200 --> 00:33:35,680
Speaker 2: at the color of it, is not because one is

598
00:33:35,720 --> 00:33:39,360
Speaker 2: sour and one's not sour the most sour, but one

599
00:33:39,560 --> 00:33:42,440
Speaker 2: has a different complement of ettererant molecules than the other

600
00:33:42,560 --> 00:33:45,520
Speaker 2: that gives it a subtly different perceptual flavor.

601
00:33:45,880 --> 00:33:49,600
Speaker 1: You distinguish smell and taste in terms of whether or

602
00:33:49,640 --> 00:33:52,480
Speaker 1: not the things can volatilize. Is that just because it

603
00:33:52,560 --> 00:33:56,080
Speaker 1: determines where it lands, like on your tongue or on

604
00:33:56,120 --> 00:34:00,000
Speaker 1: your nose, or is there fundamentally different sweet receptors there?

605
00:34:00,160 --> 00:34:03,280
Speaker 1: For example, to make a concrete is there a smell

606
00:34:03,560 --> 00:34:06,640
Speaker 1: of salt? Like salt doesn't volatilize. You're sitting in front

607
00:34:06,640 --> 00:34:10,400
Speaker 1: of a crystal of salt. You can't receive any salt

608
00:34:10,440 --> 00:34:13,280
Speaker 1: molecules on your nose. Obviously, you lick it, you taste it,

609
00:34:13,320 --> 00:34:15,080
Speaker 1: But is there a smell of salt if you could

610
00:34:15,120 --> 00:34:18,359
Speaker 1: like pulverize the salt and sprayed against your nose, would

611
00:34:18,360 --> 00:34:19,520
Speaker 1: you notice anything?

612
00:34:19,920 --> 00:34:23,560
Speaker 2: Basically, no, there's not. I mean people often if you

613
00:34:23,600 --> 00:34:27,760
Speaker 2: ever looked at Terminado sugar, you know that's a raw sugar.

614
00:34:28,600 --> 00:34:31,839
Speaker 2: This hasn't been really refined. It has an aroma to it,

615
00:34:31,920 --> 00:34:34,920
Speaker 2: but that's sort of the leftover molasses and stuff. If

616
00:34:34,960 --> 00:34:39,400
Speaker 2: you were to get pure sucrose or pure sodium chloride,

617
00:34:39,440 --> 00:34:42,640
Speaker 2: and you do, there are no contaminants. They're really not

618
00:34:42,680 --> 00:34:44,920
Speaker 2: going to give you a smell. I mean, if you

619
00:34:44,960 --> 00:34:50,080
Speaker 2: could somehow create a spray of individual sodium chloride molecules,

620
00:34:50,320 --> 00:34:52,879
Speaker 2: I guess there wouldn't be anything specific, because that would

621
00:34:52,920 --> 00:34:57,400
Speaker 2: be a molecule that would probably impact every single receptor. Wow,

622
00:34:57,440 --> 00:34:59,360
Speaker 2: I'd just give you a background blur.

623
00:35:00,360 --> 00:35:02,440
Speaker 3: So if you had to lose your sense of taste

624
00:35:02,600 --> 00:35:05,200
Speaker 3: or your sense of smell, which would you rather.

625
00:35:05,040 --> 00:35:07,480
Speaker 2: Lose smell easily?

626
00:35:07,880 --> 00:35:08,240
Speaker 1: Wow?

627
00:35:08,320 --> 00:35:08,680
Speaker 3: Really?

628
00:35:08,800 --> 00:35:12,040
Speaker 2: And that's not because any way just diminished. I don't

629
00:35:12,040 --> 00:35:14,840
Speaker 2: want to lose either of them. Yeah, people who I

630
00:35:14,880 --> 00:35:18,880
Speaker 2: would say I would probably rather lose sight, er hearing

631
00:35:18,960 --> 00:35:21,719
Speaker 2: than smell or taste. Once again, I don't want to

632
00:35:21,719 --> 00:35:24,320
Speaker 2: lose any of them. The reason that I put taste

633
00:35:24,400 --> 00:35:26,319
Speaker 2: at sort of the top of the list of not

634
00:35:26,440 --> 00:35:31,160
Speaker 2: wanting to is because the people who really cannot taste,

635
00:35:31,760 --> 00:35:34,560
Speaker 2: it's much less common than people losing the sense of smell.

636
00:35:34,680 --> 00:35:37,200
Speaker 2: I've actually met someone who actually born without a sense

637
00:35:37,239 --> 00:35:40,240
Speaker 2: of taste, and one thing that they sort of routinely

638
00:35:40,239 --> 00:35:42,960
Speaker 2: describe is just how hard it is to eat. I mean,

639
00:35:43,000 --> 00:35:48,040
Speaker 2: even to swallow food. Everything becomes very texturally driven in

640
00:35:48,080 --> 00:35:50,839
Speaker 2: the mouth, so soft foods are really hard to get

641
00:35:50,880 --> 00:35:56,279
Speaker 2: down and it just seems like a real challenge for

642
00:35:56,400 --> 00:35:58,480
Speaker 2: them for whole life.

643
00:35:58,680 --> 00:36:01,680
Speaker 1: Wait, so soft foods are unpleasant without taste, is that

644
00:36:01,680 --> 00:36:02,240
Speaker 1: what you're saying.

645
00:36:02,440 --> 00:36:06,600
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's something about without having that taste, but it's

646
00:36:06,840 --> 00:36:12,120
Speaker 2: just purely the texture impact. The yogurts and cotta cheese.

647
00:36:12,200 --> 00:36:14,000
Speaker 2: I mean, not that I want to eat cottage cheese anyway,

648
00:36:14,040 --> 00:36:20,120
Speaker 2: but oh, these things aren't just very difficult. So usually

649
00:36:20,280 --> 00:36:22,040
Speaker 2: what they will do is they'll try to add texture

650
00:36:22,600 --> 00:36:25,360
Speaker 2: to it, which is to make any time with a

651
00:36:25,440 --> 00:36:28,839
Speaker 2: sensory loss, if you can make things multisensory in other

652
00:36:28,880 --> 00:36:32,600
Speaker 2: ways that help to offset some of those losses. We

653
00:36:32,719 --> 00:36:36,880
Speaker 2: say that for people with smell disorders, explore adding different spices,

654
00:36:36,920 --> 00:36:40,160
Speaker 2: adding textures, adding color to your food to make it

655
00:36:40,280 --> 00:36:45,160
Speaker 2: more palatable, enjoyable. You're never going to hundred percent offset

656
00:36:45,840 --> 00:36:49,960
Speaker 2: the loss of the ability to smell the aromas, but

657
00:36:50,280 --> 00:36:54,000
Speaker 2: you can get it closer. A lot of South Asian

658
00:36:54,000 --> 00:36:59,920
Speaker 2: food oftentimes are very popular with individuals who have lost

659
00:37:00,480 --> 00:37:03,160
Speaker 2: their sense of smell because of the spices.

660
00:37:03,400 --> 00:37:06,520
Speaker 1: So you're saying, crunchy blue cottage cheese is a better

661
00:37:06,600 --> 00:37:09,680
Speaker 1: experience than white, soft cottage cheese.

662
00:37:09,960 --> 00:37:16,200
Speaker 2: Yeah, but that's a low Baruch.

663
00:37:15,920 --> 00:37:17,719
Speaker 3: Let's take a break and we'll come back and talk

664
00:37:17,760 --> 00:37:33,880
Speaker 3: more about smell and taste.

665
00:37:35,360 --> 00:37:37,479
Speaker 1: So this helps me understand a question I wanted to ask,

666
00:37:37,600 --> 00:37:40,640
Speaker 1: which was about what happens when we get a cold

667
00:37:41,040 --> 00:37:44,080
Speaker 1: and our nose is plugged up and things taste like cardboard.

668
00:37:44,600 --> 00:37:46,520
Speaker 1: So I'm guessing now from your answers before that my

669
00:37:46,600 --> 00:37:48,799
Speaker 1: taste hasn't changed because I can still put my tongue

670
00:37:48,840 --> 00:37:52,160
Speaker 1: on things, but my sense of smell has decreased, and

671
00:37:52,200 --> 00:37:55,360
Speaker 1: so my flavor experience has changed. So I can still

672
00:37:55,400 --> 00:37:57,920
Speaker 1: technically taste things when I have a cold, but I'm

673
00:37:57,960 --> 00:37:59,840
Speaker 1: not getting the full experience exactly.

674
00:38:00,160 --> 00:38:04,880
Speaker 2: You're losing You're having diminished flavor perception while your taste

675
00:38:05,200 --> 00:38:08,120
Speaker 2: is the same. But that's being technically how we use

676
00:38:08,160 --> 00:38:11,800
Speaker 2: it as opposed to the way most people would colloquially

677
00:38:12,520 --> 00:38:16,600
Speaker 2: describe it. So that's having diminished taste. But yes, taste

678
00:38:16,640 --> 00:38:19,719
Speaker 2: and smell are differentially affected. There are a variety of

679
00:38:19,760 --> 00:38:24,359
Speaker 2: reasons that people could lose sense of smell, sometimes very temporarily,

680
00:38:24,520 --> 00:38:26,880
Speaker 2: like just having a head cold where you're just clogged

681
00:38:26,960 --> 00:38:28,839
Speaker 2: up and so the outer molecules can't get to where

682
00:38:28,840 --> 00:38:33,080
Speaker 2: they need to go. Sometimes it's because of shorter or

683
00:38:33,120 --> 00:38:40,520
Speaker 2: longer term damage, everything from viruses to inhale toxins or pollutants,

684
00:38:41,160 --> 00:38:45,760
Speaker 2: sino nasal disease. It may cause inflammation, allergies, head trauma,

685
00:38:46,440 --> 00:38:53,080
Speaker 2: early stages Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and other neurological generative diseases.

686
00:38:53,320 --> 00:38:57,040
Speaker 1: Exposure to the swamps of Virginia Daniel.

687
00:38:57,480 --> 00:38:59,319
Speaker 3: If I could just intruct it, are those things like

688
00:38:59,480 --> 00:39:01,840
Speaker 3: messing up the shape of the receptors, are messing up

689
00:39:01,880 --> 00:39:04,439
Speaker 3: the connection between the neurons that talk to your brain,

690
00:39:04,600 --> 00:39:06,560
Speaker 3: or maybe it's a combination of these things.

691
00:39:06,800 --> 00:39:10,839
Speaker 2: They differ. So for example, loss of smell is one

692
00:39:10,840 --> 00:39:15,879
Speaker 2: of the earliest signs of what we call idiopathic or

693
00:39:16,160 --> 00:39:20,680
Speaker 2: typical Parkinson's disease, even before some of the motor symptoms.

694
00:39:21,640 --> 00:39:25,280
Speaker 2: While we don't know exactly how it's happening, what seems

695
00:39:25,320 --> 00:39:28,200
Speaker 2: to be the case is areas of the brain that

696
00:39:28,239 --> 00:39:31,360
Speaker 2: are affected by Parkinson's. Some of the earlier areas to

697
00:39:31,360 --> 00:39:34,440
Speaker 2: be affected are ones that are important for dealing with smell,

698
00:39:34,520 --> 00:39:37,200
Speaker 2: So that's happening in the brain, not in the periphery

699
00:39:37,239 --> 00:39:41,480
Speaker 2: within the nose. Contrast that with COVID nineteen, so we'd

700
00:39:41,560 --> 00:39:45,520
Speaker 2: known for long time that a variety of viruses, common

701
00:39:45,560 --> 00:39:53,600
Speaker 2: coronaviruses that can cause common cold, rhinoviruses, abnoviruses, influenza, they

702
00:39:53,640 --> 00:39:57,360
Speaker 2: could in some people will lead to temporary or permanent

703
00:39:57,800 --> 00:40:02,760
Speaker 2: smell loss. In COVID was really striking how many people

704
00:40:02,800 --> 00:40:07,279
Speaker 2: were losing their sense of smell very rapidly, and the

705
00:40:07,360 --> 00:40:10,799
Speaker 2: large number of them, probably about ten percent, may never

706
00:40:11,640 --> 00:40:16,120
Speaker 2: recover that spell that they lost, which is really hard

707
00:40:16,160 --> 00:40:20,120
Speaker 2: for them to deal with. But we do know something

708
00:40:20,120 --> 00:40:25,120
Speaker 2: about how that virus is causing this disruption. And so

709
00:40:25,360 --> 00:40:28,240
Speaker 2: in the tissue in your nose where those sensory neurons

710
00:40:28,280 --> 00:40:32,359
Speaker 2: are sitting that detect the odors, that's called the olfactory epithelium,

711
00:40:32,480 --> 00:40:36,080
Speaker 2: there are other cells there that support those neurons actions.

712
00:40:36,120 --> 00:40:40,600
Speaker 2: There are supporting cells called sustentacular cells that are sort

713
00:40:40,600 --> 00:40:44,120
Speaker 2: of balancing the environment. They may be putting out certain

714
00:40:44,400 --> 00:40:47,440
Speaker 2: molecules in the area. They're providing support to the whole tissue.

715
00:40:47,440 --> 00:40:51,160
Speaker 2: There are glandular cells, there are stem cells that are

716
00:40:51,520 --> 00:40:55,799
Speaker 2: allowing the tissue throughout your life to constantly regenerate. It

717
00:40:55,840 --> 00:40:59,000
Speaker 2: turns out that the virus doesn't directly attack the sensory

718
00:40:59,040 --> 00:41:03,640
Speaker 2: neurons tacks the supporting cells and the stem cells, and

719
00:41:04,320 --> 00:41:08,520
Speaker 2: in some people that attack, that disruption of those cells

720
00:41:08,719 --> 00:41:12,080
Speaker 2: is going to be temporary enough the cells, some of them, survive.

721
00:41:12,200 --> 00:41:16,719
Speaker 2: The neurons aren't damaged indirectly enough to not be able

722
00:41:16,760 --> 00:41:19,040
Speaker 2: to recover. Maybe the neurons are wiped out, but the

723
00:41:19,080 --> 00:41:21,680
Speaker 2: stem cells are intact and they're able to regenerate the

724
00:41:21,719 --> 00:41:24,399
Speaker 2: tissue in a few days or weeks. But in other

725
00:41:24,480 --> 00:41:27,799
Speaker 2: people the damage is extensive enough that that does not

726
00:41:27,920 --> 00:41:30,080
Speaker 2: seem to be the case. But it is a sort

727
00:41:30,080 --> 00:41:34,320
Speaker 2: of an indirect attack by the virus on the olfactory neurons,

728
00:41:34,400 --> 00:41:35,800
Speaker 2: rather than the neurons.

729
00:41:35,400 --> 00:41:36,239
Speaker 1: Themselves be dead.

730
00:41:36,440 --> 00:41:39,640
Speaker 2: Other viruses may work differently, but it is that peripheral

731
00:41:40,239 --> 00:41:43,080
Speaker 2: damage that's the issue. Now we also know that in

732
00:41:43,080 --> 00:41:46,520
Speaker 2: a small number of people there seem to be true

733
00:41:46,640 --> 00:41:49,680
Speaker 2: taste effects and even chemosthesis effects. You may have send

734
00:41:49,760 --> 00:41:53,040
Speaker 2: videos of people saying, oh, yeah, I'm chewing an onion,

735
00:41:53,120 --> 00:41:55,400
Speaker 2: or I'm going to just shovel garlic into my mouth,

736
00:41:55,840 --> 00:41:56,920
Speaker 2: not perceiving.

737
00:41:56,480 --> 00:41:59,680
Speaker 1: It at all. We don't know why or how.

738
00:41:59,520 --> 00:42:03,560
Speaker 2: The virus was affecting taste or chemosthesis. Those losses did

739
00:42:03,560 --> 00:42:06,840
Speaker 2: seem to be temporary. I'm not aware of long term

740
00:42:07,080 --> 00:42:08,680
Speaker 2: losses in those senses.

741
00:42:08,960 --> 00:42:10,839
Speaker 3: So I have a friend she lost her sense of smell,

742
00:42:10,880 --> 00:42:12,480
Speaker 3: and then when it came back, she was smelling things

743
00:42:12,480 --> 00:42:15,560
Speaker 3: that weren't there. Is that common and what causes that?

744
00:42:15,840 --> 00:42:18,040
Speaker 2: That actually is very common. So if we think of

745
00:42:18,160 --> 00:42:21,560
Speaker 2: smell disorders, we can break them into two different categories.

746
00:42:21,760 --> 00:42:25,799
Speaker 2: One we'd call quantitative disorders, So this really a reduction

747
00:42:26,440 --> 00:42:31,160
Speaker 2: or complete inability to detect or perceive odors, and the

748
00:42:31,200 --> 00:42:34,840
Speaker 2: others are qualitative someone changing the quality of the smell.

749
00:42:35,080 --> 00:42:38,640
Speaker 2: And we can break those into two different groups. Parosmia

750
00:42:39,280 --> 00:42:42,560
Speaker 2: is distorted smell. So someone put a flower in front

751
00:42:42,560 --> 00:42:44,840
Speaker 2: of your nose, you smell, and it smells like garbage,

752
00:42:44,960 --> 00:42:49,480
Speaker 2: and that's you can imagine not good. Phantosmia is the

753
00:42:49,520 --> 00:42:52,800
Speaker 2: perception of smells when nothing is there. I smell smoke,

754
00:42:52,920 --> 00:42:57,240
Speaker 2: I smell sometimes luckily those are pleasant smells, but more often,

755
00:42:57,480 --> 00:43:00,200
Speaker 2: like with the prosmea, they are unpleasant smells as well. Well.

756
00:43:00,440 --> 00:43:03,520
Speaker 1: You mentioned fecal phantoms earlier that I have to follow

757
00:43:03,560 --> 00:43:03,799
Speaker 1: up on.

758
00:43:04,000 --> 00:43:07,760
Speaker 2: Yeah, equal smells, garbage smells are ones that are very common.

759
00:43:08,480 --> 00:43:13,000
Speaker 2: These often not exclusively, but often will come sort of

760
00:43:13,080 --> 00:43:16,799
Speaker 2: as the system is trying to potentially repair itself. We

761
00:43:16,880 --> 00:43:19,640
Speaker 2: see someone's getting they've lost their sense of smell, so

762
00:43:19,680 --> 00:43:23,239
Speaker 2: they have an osmia with no ability smell, or hyposmia

763
00:43:23,360 --> 00:43:26,280
Speaker 2: reduce smell, and that sense of smell is coming back.

764
00:43:26,800 --> 00:43:32,919
Speaker 2: But during that time, parosmia or phantosmia emerges. And while

765
00:43:32,920 --> 00:43:35,480
Speaker 2: we don't absolutely know the cause, it may be as

766
00:43:35,520 --> 00:43:38,800
Speaker 2: the system's trying to rewire itself whenever the brain is

767
00:43:39,280 --> 00:43:43,239
Speaker 2: getting miss signals or creating signals looking for them when

768
00:43:43,239 --> 00:43:45,520
Speaker 2: they aren't fully coming from the nose. So that is

769
00:43:46,000 --> 00:43:47,760
Speaker 2: unfortunately pretty common.

770
00:43:47,840 --> 00:43:50,279
Speaker 1: And why don't we understand the cause? What's hard about

771
00:43:50,320 --> 00:43:52,880
Speaker 1: these studies is it that we're talking about humans and

772
00:43:52,960 --> 00:43:55,439
Speaker 1: brains and you can't just do whatever experiments you want.

773
00:43:55,719 --> 00:43:58,080
Speaker 2: I think there are a couple of reasons. One is

774
00:43:58,120 --> 00:44:01,600
Speaker 2: that the senses of smell and taste were very much

775
00:44:01,960 --> 00:44:05,400
Speaker 2: neglected from a medical point of view for many, many years.

776
00:44:05,640 --> 00:44:07,480
Speaker 2: The loser sense of smell, you go to the doctor

777
00:44:07,600 --> 00:44:10,279
Speaker 2: if they even knew anything about it, because they don't

778
00:44:10,280 --> 00:44:14,440
Speaker 2: get taught about it in medical school to any meaningful extent.

779
00:44:14,680 --> 00:44:17,239
Speaker 2: They might say, oh, that's too bad, You're just gonna

780
00:44:17,239 --> 00:44:18,759
Speaker 2: have to live with it. Or nothing we can do

781
00:44:18,800 --> 00:44:21,880
Speaker 2: about it and sort of getting passed off of that

782
00:44:21,920 --> 00:44:24,640
Speaker 2: there wasn't a lot of attention to it. The other is,

783
00:44:24,680 --> 00:44:29,680
Speaker 2: for those qualitative disorders parosmi and phantasmia, we can't measure

784
00:44:29,719 --> 00:44:32,800
Speaker 2: them in any objective way. We have tools to measure

785
00:44:33,320 --> 00:44:37,040
Speaker 2: smell loss, the variety of psychophysical tests that we can

786
00:44:37,120 --> 00:44:42,839
Speaker 2: do that can allow us to quantify how sensitive you

787
00:44:42,880 --> 00:44:47,040
Speaker 2: are to particular odors. With parosmia and photosmia, we are

788
00:44:47,200 --> 00:44:51,800
Speaker 2: entirely relying on the patient being able to describe it

789
00:44:52,400 --> 00:44:54,920
Speaker 2: and sort of related. We just don't have the tools

790
00:44:54,920 --> 00:44:57,680
Speaker 2: to investigate it nearly as well as for smell loss.

791
00:44:57,520 --> 00:45:00,279
Speaker 3: You mentioned that the phantom smells tend to to be

792
00:45:00,600 --> 00:45:05,040
Speaker 3: like garbage or feces. Is there any hypothesis for why

793
00:45:05,480 --> 00:45:08,719
Speaker 3: bad smells are what comes first? Does it represent anything about, like,

794
00:45:08,719 --> 00:45:11,960
Speaker 3: you know, evolutionarily, smells that clue us into the presence

795
00:45:11,960 --> 00:45:14,719
Speaker 3: of like disease causing agents are more important, so we

796
00:45:14,760 --> 00:45:16,479
Speaker 3: put those online first, or who the heck knows?

797
00:45:16,680 --> 00:45:19,680
Speaker 2: I think it's both of those that you gave. What

798
00:45:19,680 --> 00:45:23,440
Speaker 2: I'd say, it's probably the leading hypothesis about it that

799
00:45:23,840 --> 00:45:26,960
Speaker 2: avoiding bad is more important, So it sort of faulse

800
00:45:27,040 --> 00:45:30,120
Speaker 2: to that, but there's really no evidence to support it,

801
00:45:30,320 --> 00:45:31,919
Speaker 2: just as the one that seems to make more sense.

802
00:45:32,000 --> 00:45:33,000
Speaker 2: But yeah, we just don't know.

803
00:45:33,320 --> 00:45:35,360
Speaker 1: And what about on the other end of the spectrum.

804
00:45:35,480 --> 00:45:38,520
Speaker 1: I remember hearing when I visited a perfume factory once

805
00:45:38,560 --> 00:45:41,560
Speaker 1: in France that there are people who are like super smellers,

806
00:45:42,120 --> 00:45:44,480
Speaker 1: and you know, their job is to like distinguish these

807
00:45:44,480 --> 00:45:47,399
Speaker 1: smells and design new perfumes. And there's like a very

808
00:45:47,440 --> 00:45:51,000
Speaker 1: small number of these supernoses. And also that their noses

809
00:45:51,040 --> 00:45:53,160
Speaker 1: get tired, so they can only work for a few

810
00:45:53,160 --> 00:45:54,680
Speaker 1: hours during the day and then that's spend the rest

811
00:45:54,719 --> 00:45:56,960
Speaker 1: of the day on the beach recovering from all this,

812
00:45:57,239 --> 00:46:00,280
Speaker 1: you know, difficult smelling work. Are these people real? Oh's

813
00:46:00,320 --> 00:46:01,879
Speaker 1: the whole thing a scam? And how does your nose

814
00:46:01,920 --> 00:46:02,440
Speaker 1: get tired?

815
00:46:02,719 --> 00:46:05,319
Speaker 2: They are real? Yeah, Generally their professional term is a

816
00:46:05,360 --> 00:46:10,319
Speaker 2: nose professional nose. And much like we were talking about

817
00:46:10,400 --> 00:46:13,880
Speaker 2: earlier about Sammie's and others, they've been trained. They certainly

818
00:46:13,960 --> 00:46:17,040
Speaker 2: have a good sense of smell. They probably are if

819
00:46:17,080 --> 00:46:20,080
Speaker 2: we look on the bell curve, they lean towards the

820
00:46:20,200 --> 00:46:24,320
Speaker 2: better end of those abilities. But they've also really learned

821
00:46:24,320 --> 00:46:26,759
Speaker 2: to recognize all these things. But the reason that they

822
00:46:26,800 --> 00:46:30,480
Speaker 2: get tired is what we call it adaptation or desensitization

823
00:46:31,040 --> 00:46:33,880
Speaker 2: and habituation, depending on where along in the nose and

824
00:46:33,960 --> 00:46:38,000
Speaker 2: brain this happens. But basically, when you're having something stimulated

825
00:46:38,719 --> 00:46:43,320
Speaker 2: over and over, you can sort of oversaturate a particular

826
00:46:43,560 --> 00:46:47,000
Speaker 2: information channel in the brain and it will dial down

827
00:46:47,040 --> 00:46:49,720
Speaker 2: the gain and come less. So you have to take breaks.

828
00:46:49,840 --> 00:46:53,000
Speaker 2: Even when we're smell testing people, we work in breaks

829
00:46:53,719 --> 00:46:56,319
Speaker 2: within it so that they don't get sort of overwhelmed

830
00:46:56,320 --> 00:47:00,520
Speaker 2: and saturated, so they're attuned to the next Like you

831
00:47:00,600 --> 00:47:04,520
Speaker 2: all experience adaptation. You go into a bakery and smell

832
00:47:04,560 --> 00:47:06,960
Speaker 2: the cookies and the breads and everything, and then you're

833
00:47:06,960 --> 00:47:08,960
Speaker 2: there for a few minutes and it just there goes away.

834
00:47:09,000 --> 00:47:11,920
Speaker 2: You don't really notice it anymore. Part of that is

835
00:47:11,960 --> 00:47:14,360
Speaker 2: the gain of the system being down. Part of that

836
00:47:14,480 --> 00:47:17,880
Speaker 2: is your brain attending to novel stimuli and all of that.

837
00:47:17,960 --> 00:47:19,480
Speaker 2: I don't know if they head out to the beach,

838
00:47:19,760 --> 00:47:22,799
Speaker 2: probably most of them are in Paris or Geneva, but yeah,

839
00:47:22,880 --> 00:47:25,319
Speaker 2: there's a real physiological reason that they need to have

840
00:47:25,400 --> 00:47:26,040
Speaker 2: those breaks.

841
00:47:26,239 --> 00:47:28,600
Speaker 1: Well, I used to know a guy who lived downwind

842
00:47:28,719 --> 00:47:32,640
Speaker 1: from the Nilla wafer factory in Houston, and he said

843
00:47:32,760 --> 00:47:34,600
Speaker 1: he had to move away because he was gaining weight

844
00:47:34,640 --> 00:47:37,719
Speaker 1: because it just made him eat all the time. And

845
00:47:37,800 --> 00:47:40,480
Speaker 1: it makes me wonder about the sort of subconscious effect

846
00:47:40,480 --> 00:47:43,400
Speaker 1: of smells. I mean, are there smells that affect our

847
00:47:43,440 --> 00:47:46,400
Speaker 1: behavior that we don't consciously experience? Are there, for example,

848
00:47:46,680 --> 00:47:49,640
Speaker 1: human pheromones that you know attract you to somebody or not.

849
00:47:49,920 --> 00:47:51,920
Speaker 1: Do perfumes actually do that to people?

850
00:47:52,200 --> 00:47:55,960
Speaker 2: There's no good evidence of human fairmonts. And by a

851
00:47:55,960 --> 00:48:01,279
Speaker 2: pheromone specifically mean a odoor that's given off by one

852
00:48:01,360 --> 00:48:04,239
Speaker 2: number of a species, that acts on another member of

853
00:48:04,239 --> 00:48:08,920
Speaker 2: a species to change its behavior, or some physiological response

854
00:48:08,960 --> 00:48:13,719
Speaker 2: like a hormonal response. We don't use those, but certainly

855
00:48:14,280 --> 00:48:20,000
Speaker 2: smells can affect our interactions with each other. You talk

856
00:48:20,040 --> 00:48:24,080
Speaker 2: about two young mothers who lose their sense of smell.

857
00:48:24,160 --> 00:48:26,200
Speaker 2: One of the things they'll bring up very early. So

858
00:48:26,520 --> 00:48:29,120
Speaker 2: you know my baby's head, I love smelling his hair

859
00:48:29,200 --> 00:48:32,359
Speaker 2: after you got to wash your stuff. There definitely is

860
00:48:32,400 --> 00:48:38,000
Speaker 2: a link between smell and emotion and sort of that

861
00:48:38,120 --> 00:48:42,080
Speaker 2: bonding and all those types of things. Romantic partners will

862
00:48:42,080 --> 00:48:46,200
Speaker 2: often talk about enjoying the smell of their partner and

863
00:48:46,600 --> 00:48:51,879
Speaker 2: things like that, But these are not innate triggering fair

864
00:48:51,920 --> 00:48:54,759
Speaker 2: aomones in that way. But similarly, it can be if

865
00:48:54,800 --> 00:48:57,160
Speaker 2: your friend had the nil away for experience and that

866
00:48:57,239 --> 00:49:00,879
Speaker 2: triggered you know, intensity, maybe around front baking all the time,

867
00:49:01,320 --> 00:49:05,200
Speaker 2: whatever it is. But people who live near hog farms

868
00:49:05,800 --> 00:49:09,600
Speaker 2: that have these large pools to deal with the waste.

869
00:49:10,320 --> 00:49:13,320
Speaker 2: There are a lot of studies about the increased depression.

870
00:49:13,160 --> 00:49:15,880
Speaker 1: Ecal lagoons cause people to get depressed or saying.

871
00:49:15,760 --> 00:49:19,120
Speaker 2: Yeah exactly wow, so yeah, those aspects are very real.

872
00:49:19,400 --> 00:49:21,840
Speaker 3: When I was in college, I remember in my evolutionary

873
00:49:21,840 --> 00:49:25,040
Speaker 3: psychology class learning about these studies where like men wear

874
00:49:25,080 --> 00:49:27,759
Speaker 3: shirts and then the women smelled the shirts and then

875
00:49:27,840 --> 00:49:31,200
Speaker 3: rated which men were the most attractive. So that's not pheromones.

876
00:49:31,239 --> 00:49:33,279
Speaker 3: Has that study since been debunked or was there something

877
00:49:33,280 --> 00:49:34,360
Speaker 3: else that they were picking up on?

878
00:49:34,640 --> 00:49:39,960
Speaker 2: There certainly are questions about the extent of that mean.

879
00:49:40,080 --> 00:49:45,360
Speaker 2: Certainly the concept of women's menstrual cycles coordinating in dorms

880
00:49:45,400 --> 00:49:48,640
Speaker 2: and things like that that may be spell related. I

881
00:49:48,640 --> 00:49:52,239
Speaker 2: would say they haven't always been replicated to the sense.

882
00:49:51,960 --> 00:49:54,480
Speaker 3: So I thought that one was fairly debunked. That it's

883
00:49:54,520 --> 00:49:57,080
Speaker 3: more like a statistical you're just going to overlap twenty

884
00:49:57,080 --> 00:49:58,000
Speaker 3: five percent of the time.

885
00:49:57,880 --> 00:49:58,680
Speaker 1: By chance or something.

886
00:49:58,760 --> 00:50:01,200
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. It's also not something I think a lot

887
00:50:01,200 --> 00:50:03,279
Speaker 2: of people are spending a lot of time studying at

888
00:50:03,280 --> 00:50:03,640
Speaker 2: the moment.

889
00:50:04,040 --> 00:50:06,360
Speaker 1: And if we have some understanding of the chemical mechanism

890
00:50:06,440 --> 00:50:10,640
Speaker 1: of this, can we make progress towards things like recording

891
00:50:10,760 --> 00:50:14,080
Speaker 1: sense digitally and then manufacturing them. You know, can I

892
00:50:14,120 --> 00:50:17,279
Speaker 1: create an artificial nose with all of these receptors, write

893
00:50:17,320 --> 00:50:20,120
Speaker 1: down the signals and then create something which puffs out

894
00:50:20,239 --> 00:50:22,480
Speaker 1: those molecules on the other side, or I could like

895
00:50:22,600 --> 00:50:23,920
Speaker 1: email somebody a smell.

896
00:50:24,160 --> 00:50:27,239
Speaker 2: There are a lot of efforts in this area, and

897
00:50:27,280 --> 00:50:30,799
Speaker 2: you can imagine artificial noses being used as sensors for

898
00:50:30,840 --> 00:50:35,680
Speaker 2: all sorts of things, biosecurity types of questions. They put

899
00:50:35,719 --> 00:50:39,000
Speaker 2: them in fields to know when the props are ready

900
00:50:39,000 --> 00:50:42,439
Speaker 2: to harvest, or if there's been an infestation, things like that.

901
00:50:42,480 --> 00:50:44,480
Speaker 2: A lot of these it could be more specialized. You'd

902
00:50:44,480 --> 00:50:47,319
Speaker 2: certainly love to have. You know, there's a lot of

903
00:50:47,320 --> 00:50:50,839
Speaker 2: evidence that the aromas that an individual gives off if

904
00:50:50,880 --> 00:50:53,520
Speaker 2: they have cancer or if they have some other disease

905
00:50:53,640 --> 00:50:56,319
Speaker 2: might be unique. If you could identify those chemicals there

906
00:50:56,320 --> 00:50:58,680
Speaker 2: are dogs that have been trained, although that's really hard

907
00:50:58,760 --> 00:51:00,880
Speaker 2: to make a regular part of it because just the

908
00:51:00,920 --> 00:51:02,920
Speaker 2: amount of training and how you have to go through that.

909
00:51:02,920 --> 00:51:04,640
Speaker 2: But if you can have a sensor a wand you

910
00:51:04,640 --> 00:51:07,279
Speaker 2: could wave over someone to detect that, that would be

911
00:51:07,760 --> 00:51:11,640
Speaker 2: a miracle. But there's also commercial ways for trying to

912
00:51:11,680 --> 00:51:16,320
Speaker 2: replicate this with food or with other types of aromas

913
00:51:16,360 --> 00:51:20,040
Speaker 2: you might like to recapitulate. For example, a lot of

914
00:51:20,080 --> 00:51:23,959
Speaker 2: the flavor houses now will usually go around and sample things.

915
00:51:23,960 --> 00:51:27,280
Speaker 2: They put a dome to capture the odor headspace over

916
00:51:28,239 --> 00:51:31,520
Speaker 2: a plate of food at a particular food truck that

917
00:51:31,560 --> 00:51:36,000
Speaker 2: you like, or you put over a borneo forest and

918
00:51:36,040 --> 00:51:38,680
Speaker 2: collect all the volatives coming off a particular group of

919
00:51:38,719 --> 00:51:44,800
Speaker 2: plants or whatever. Take those back, use modern biochemical chromatographic

920
00:51:45,080 --> 00:51:48,200
Speaker 2: mass spect types of techniques to define not only every

921
00:51:48,239 --> 00:51:52,160
Speaker 2: single molecule but also its relative concentration, which is very important,

922
00:51:52,480 --> 00:51:55,640
Speaker 2: and then they can recapitulate these. They can do this chemically,

923
00:51:56,160 --> 00:52:00,279
Speaker 2: but then can you also send it a lot long

924
00:52:00,520 --> 00:52:02,799
Speaker 2: to have a production apparatus on the other end of

925
00:52:02,800 --> 00:52:05,600
Speaker 2: that email that that can then puff it out. People

926
00:52:05,680 --> 00:52:09,439
Speaker 2: have been trying that to various degrees for decades now,

927
00:52:09,480 --> 00:52:12,279
Speaker 2: and I think the technology is catching up to be

928
00:52:12,400 --> 00:52:14,960
Speaker 2: able to do that in a much more sophisticated way.

929
00:52:15,360 --> 00:52:18,440
Speaker 1: So I could email California to Kelly so she can

930
00:52:18,480 --> 00:52:21,080
Speaker 1: also enjoy the sense of the ocean and the floral notes.

931
00:52:21,160 --> 00:52:23,160
Speaker 3: You know, I'm going to try to be nice and

932
00:52:23,200 --> 00:52:25,239
Speaker 3: not mentioned that right now, you'd probably be sending me

933
00:52:25,280 --> 00:52:30,439
Speaker 3: the smell of burning home. But Virginia's got some perks. Man.

934
00:52:30,719 --> 00:52:32,680
Speaker 2: Yeah, this seems like maybe a running.

935
00:52:33,960 --> 00:52:35,360
Speaker 3: This is a running debate.

936
00:52:35,680 --> 00:52:38,640
Speaker 1: So my question is, I hope a question you haven't

937
00:52:38,640 --> 00:52:44,000
Speaker 1: heard before, which is about smell and taste on other planets.

938
00:52:44,480 --> 00:52:47,120
Speaker 1: Given the usefulness of smell and taste and our knowledge

939
00:52:47,120 --> 00:52:49,239
Speaker 1: of the evolutionary history on Earth, what do you think

940
00:52:49,280 --> 00:52:52,239
Speaker 1: the chances are that aliens, when they evolve on their

941
00:52:52,239 --> 00:52:55,359
Speaker 1: planets smell and taste or don't smell and taste. How

942
00:52:55,480 --> 00:52:57,440
Speaker 1: likely do you think this is to be ubiquitous to

943
00:52:57,520 --> 00:52:58,400
Speaker 1: life in the universe.

944
00:52:58,719 --> 00:53:03,040
Speaker 2: I would think it would be more ubiquitous than other senses.

945
00:53:03,600 --> 00:53:07,680
Speaker 2: They are chemicals everywhere the universes, chemicals just arranged in

946
00:53:07,719 --> 00:53:12,680
Speaker 2: different forms, and so being able to sense that is

947
00:53:13,480 --> 00:53:18,239
Speaker 2: really integral. You look at unicellular organisms, whether they're bacteria,

948
00:53:18,640 --> 00:53:22,759
Speaker 2: protozoans or whatnot. They can all sense the chemicals around them.

949
00:53:23,040 --> 00:53:28,440
Speaker 2: These are fundamentally primitive forms of smell and taste. So yeah,

950
00:53:28,560 --> 00:53:30,239
Speaker 2: I think that is clearly going to be a thing.

951
00:53:30,360 --> 00:53:33,960
Speaker 2: Whether it is put together the same way then we have.

952
00:53:34,280 --> 00:53:38,439
Speaker 2: It's interesting that while the receptors in a fruit fly

953
00:53:38,760 --> 00:53:41,920
Speaker 2: and a human, the receptors for odors and for tastes

954
00:53:42,360 --> 00:53:46,560
Speaker 2: are molecularly completely distinct from each other those two families.

955
00:53:46,600 --> 00:53:50,640
Speaker 2: It's not a single evolutionary origin of the odor receptors

956
00:53:50,680 --> 00:53:54,360
Speaker 2: across those different phila, but the arrangement of what the

957
00:53:54,480 --> 00:53:58,400
Speaker 2: sensory neurons look like, how they're arranged connected to the brain,

958
00:53:58,440 --> 00:54:04,080
Speaker 2: and how they arranged is actually remarkably similar. And those

959
00:54:04,160 --> 00:54:07,840
Speaker 2: that independently evolve, so there seem to be some strategies

960
00:54:08,360 --> 00:54:13,760
Speaker 2: that have benefited from that conservation or at least limited

961
00:54:13,800 --> 00:54:18,279
Speaker 2: repertoire of options, while other ones are free to to

962
00:54:18,280 --> 00:54:21,080
Speaker 2: sort of evolve independently and come up with more than

963
00:54:21,080 --> 00:54:22,400
Speaker 2: one solution to the problem.

964
00:54:22,680 --> 00:54:25,640
Speaker 1: Do aliens like cilantro a question we don't yet have

965
00:54:25,640 --> 00:54:26,160
Speaker 1: an answer to.

966
00:54:27,400 --> 00:54:31,080
Speaker 3: Maybe one day, all right. As someone with anxiety, I'm

967
00:54:31,080 --> 00:54:33,080
Speaker 3: still dwelling on the fact that I called your research

968
00:54:33,120 --> 00:54:34,879
Speaker 3: weird at the beginning. What I meant was, I asked

969
00:54:34,920 --> 00:54:37,040
Speaker 3: you weird questions because of what you do.

970
00:54:37,560 --> 00:54:38,440
Speaker 2: I don't remember that.

971
00:54:39,120 --> 00:54:41,440
Speaker 3: Oh good, good. So then the lead in is you

972
00:54:41,520 --> 00:54:44,360
Speaker 3: just started this new center for smell and taste disorders.

973
00:54:44,719 --> 00:54:46,879
Speaker 3: Tell us a bit about your new center that you're

974
00:54:46,920 --> 00:54:47,520
Speaker 3: co directing.

975
00:54:47,840 --> 00:54:52,880
Speaker 2: Well, thanks for that opportunity. It's something that we've seen

976
00:54:53,360 --> 00:54:57,960
Speaker 2: over the last decades that there's a huge need for.

977
00:54:58,440 --> 00:55:03,480
Speaker 2: And what that need is we have massive underserved population

978
00:55:03,600 --> 00:55:07,720
Speaker 2: of people that are experiencing the disorders, but the amount

979
00:55:07,760 --> 00:55:11,960
Speaker 2: of research that's going into trying to better diagnose them,

980
00:55:12,320 --> 00:55:17,240
Speaker 2: better support them, and eventually better treat them is really small.

981
00:55:18,160 --> 00:55:23,040
Speaker 2: One of the small bright spots of COVID was because

982
00:55:23,080 --> 00:55:25,680
Speaker 2: of the prevalence of smell loss and taste loss that

983
00:55:25,719 --> 00:55:29,959
Speaker 2: associated with COVID. It brought a greater attention and understanding

984
00:55:30,400 --> 00:55:34,319
Speaker 2: of the broader population about how impactful these disorders can be.

985
00:55:35,120 --> 00:55:37,080
Speaker 2: But we still have a long way goo and we

986
00:55:37,120 --> 00:55:39,600
Speaker 2: don't want to lose the momentum of that knowledge and

987
00:55:39,640 --> 00:55:44,880
Speaker 2: appreciation from it. So the center is really trying to

988
00:55:45,760 --> 00:55:49,279
Speaker 2: areas within its mission, and one is patient care, So

989
00:55:49,800 --> 00:55:52,960
Speaker 2: being able to make sure that someone who has a

990
00:55:53,000 --> 00:55:55,600
Speaker 2: smell or taste disorder has a place to go to

991
00:55:55,760 --> 00:56:01,200
Speaker 2: get diagnosed, perhaps identifying underlying cause that might be treatable,

992
00:56:01,239 --> 00:56:05,400
Speaker 2: as well to get support such that they better understand

993
00:56:05,480 --> 00:56:09,399
Speaker 2: how to improve the palatability of the food, how to

994
00:56:09,440 --> 00:56:14,880
Speaker 2: be safer with gas leaks and fires and spoiled food

995
00:56:15,080 --> 00:56:17,560
Speaker 2: and things that they may be hard to detect, how

996
00:56:17,600 --> 00:56:22,040
Speaker 2: to get emotional or therapeutic support if they're being depressed,

997
00:56:22,080 --> 00:56:26,839
Speaker 2: which is very common, where's changing their social relationships. We

998
00:56:26,880 --> 00:56:29,640
Speaker 2: also want to facilitate research, and that's everything from the

999
00:56:29,760 --> 00:56:33,600
Speaker 2: very fundamental building blocks of smell and taste and how

1000
00:56:33,600 --> 00:56:36,279
Speaker 2: it works, so that we can better understand how it

1001
00:56:36,360 --> 00:56:39,360
Speaker 2: may not work when it's spent, but also clinical studies

1002
00:56:39,360 --> 00:56:43,080
Speaker 2: looking at dignostics and treatment. One of the studies we're

1003
00:56:43,080 --> 00:56:45,400
Speaker 2: doing right now is trying to answer a very simple

1004
00:56:45,480 --> 00:56:48,000
Speaker 2: question is how much does your sense of smell normally

1005
00:56:48,120 --> 00:56:54,320
Speaker 2: vary morning versus night day to day, if you're pregnant

1006
00:56:54,680 --> 00:56:58,320
Speaker 2: during menstrual cycle, if you have other types of disorders,

1007
00:56:58,360 --> 00:57:02,560
Speaker 2: so that you can have a base line to understanding.

1008
00:57:02,560 --> 00:57:04,120
Speaker 2: So if you're going to get your sense of smell

1009
00:57:04,160 --> 00:57:08,720
Speaker 2: regularly tested, do you actually know what's just normal variation

1010
00:57:09,200 --> 00:57:12,600
Speaker 2: versus an actual pathologic change that needs to be dealt with.

1011
00:57:13,320 --> 00:57:17,840
Speaker 2: So we want to train doctors and scientists in this

1012
00:57:17,960 --> 00:57:20,920
Speaker 2: field to a better degree than is often the case.

1013
00:57:21,320 --> 00:57:24,640
Speaker 2: And then we want to reach out to the community

1014
00:57:25,240 --> 00:57:29,640
Speaker 2: education and engagement to kill people every whether it's with

1015
00:57:29,760 --> 00:57:35,880
Speaker 2: a disorder or whether it's for people who chefs, mind makers,

1016
00:57:35,960 --> 00:57:39,120
Speaker 2: and who or not that are using smell and taste

1017
00:57:39,160 --> 00:57:42,400
Speaker 2: as part of their livelihood and how they make their

1018
00:57:42,400 --> 00:57:44,760
Speaker 2: way through the world, to help them better understand that

1019
00:57:44,840 --> 00:57:45,280
Speaker 2: as well.

1020
00:57:45,760 --> 00:57:48,720
Speaker 3: Awesome, Well, congrats on the new center. I learned a

1021
00:57:48,760 --> 00:57:50,959
Speaker 3: lot today. I think I'm going to appreciate the next

1022
00:57:51,000 --> 00:57:53,600
Speaker 3: piece of food that I eat even more and appreciate

1023
00:57:53,640 --> 00:57:55,960
Speaker 3: how complex it is. I love that we learned the

1024
00:57:56,080 --> 00:57:58,120
Speaker 3: thing about vibrating. The next time I go to a

1025
00:57:58,200 --> 00:58:00,400
Speaker 3: Chinese restaurant, I'm definitely going to order something with extra

1026
00:58:00,440 --> 00:58:03,720
Speaker 3: session one. So yeah, thank you so much for coming

1027
00:58:03,760 --> 00:58:04,200
Speaker 3: on the show.

1028
00:58:04,360 --> 00:58:06,120
Speaker 2: Thanks so much for having me. It is fun.

1029
00:58:13,560 --> 00:58:17,360
Speaker 3: Daniel and Kelly's Extraordinary Universe is produced by iHeartRadio. We

1030
00:58:17,400 --> 00:58:19,840
Speaker 3: would love to hear from you, We really would.

1031
00:58:20,000 --> 00:58:22,760
Speaker 1: We want to know what questions you have about this

1032
00:58:22,960 --> 00:58:24,640
Speaker 1: Extraordinary universe.

1033
00:58:24,760 --> 00:58:27,680
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1034
00:58:27,720 --> 00:58:30,720
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1035
00:58:30,760 --> 00:58:31,160
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1036
00:58:31,360 --> 00:58:34,880
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1037
00:58:34,920 --> 00:58:37,680
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1038
00:58:37,560 --> 00:58:39,400
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1039
00:58:39,480 --> 00:58:43,320
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1040
00:58:43,400 --> 00:58:45,680
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1041
00:58:46,080 --> 00:58:47,080
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1042
00:58:47,240 --> 00:58:48,760
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