The Tongue – Illuminated Nerve Endings

Interesting technology here to illuminate the tongue and see where all the nerve ending are located, so now we can see where and how many we have and maybe next they can figure out how to make some food maybe taste better (grin)? BD

Shown here are the gustatory nerves that populate the tongue. Scientists created the image by superimposing a scanning electron microscope image onto a fluorescent image of the same tongue in which the nerves had been labeled with a red marker. This overlay allows scientist to determine whether the nerves successfully made it to their targets, the bumps on the tongue, called papillae, that house taste buds.