Five canonical tastes, bitter, sweet, umami (amino acid), salty, and sour (acid), are detected
by animals as diverse as fruit flies and humans, consistent with a near-universal drive to …

Chemoreception is essential for survival. Feeding, mating, and avoidance of predators
depend on detection of sensory cues. Drosophila contains diverse families of …

Genetic approaches in the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster, have led to a major triumph in
the field of sensory biology—the discovery of multiple large families of sensory receptors …

The ability of organisms to seamlessly ignore familiar, inconsequential stimuli improves their
selective attention and response to salient features of the environment. Here, I propose that …

The insect gustatory system senses taste information from environmental food substrates
and processes it to control feeding behaviors. Drosophila melanogaster has been a …

Recent studies find that sugar tastes less intense to humans with obesity, but whether this
sensory change is a cause or a consequence of obesity is unclear. To tackle this question …

Highlights•Taste neurons are separated into molecularly and functionally distinct
populations.•Taste detection relies on Gr, Ir, Trp, and ppk receptors.•Taste input can be …

The ability to detect toxic compounds in foods is essential for animal survival. However, the
minimal subunit composition of gustatory receptors required for sensing aversive chemicals …

Food texture has enormous effects on food preferences. However, the mechanosensory
cells and key molecules responsible for sensing the physical properties of food are …

Acid taste, evoked mainly by protons (H+), is a core taste modality for many organisms. The
hedonic valence of acid taste is bidirectional: animals prefer slightly but avoid highly acidic …