The taste of trigeminal sensations: relation between taste, lingual tactile acuity, and spicy perception in patients with taste dysfunction.

This article focuses on the relationship between taste dysfunction and oral somatosensory perception, specifically oral stereognosis (shape recognition via the tongue) and chemesthesis (detection of irritant substances like capsaicin). The study compared 28 patients with taste disturbances to 32 healthy controls using a 3D shape identification task on the tongue and intensity ratings of chili capsules, alongside gustatory and olfactory testing. Results showed that patients with taste dysfunction had significantly reduced lingual tactile sensitivity and lower chemesthetic perception of chili, with these impairments correlating with decreased gustatory and olfactory function and increasing age. The findings suggest an interconnection between gustatory and trigeminal sensory systems in the oral cavity and support the clinical utility of combined somatosensory and chemesthetic assessments for evaluating sensory impairments.