pioneering approach to taste testing and measurement published in JPET (article image)

Mitch Shuring

A Pioneering Approach to Taste Testing and Measurement

Findings provide a rigorous scientific validation of company's taste evaluation technology

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Laptop Touch-sensitive Display (TSD) as it appears during a training or test session. Response field appears on the left side of the display; the actual abscissa and ordinate of an underlying Cartesian plane is projected. The hatch marks on the abscissa and ordinate are for visual guidance only and do not correspond to numeric values. An 8 x 12 matrix, which tracks trial-by-trial progress through the game-like session, appears to the right of the response field. The consequence (indicated by a red "X" if negative, and a small poker chip if positive) on each trial appears in the next open cell immediately after the trial's end. In this example, the subject has correctly associated the taste stimulus with its designated target by touching a location in the center of the response field (coordinates of 0.5, 0.5), resulting in the immediate appearance of a large poker chip just below the 8 x 12 matrix. Counters appear below the left and right corners of the 8 x 12 matrix; left counter tracks remaining trials in the progression and right counter displays cumulative points earned (each point worth $0.01). The bar above the 8 x 12 matrix displays messages to prompt the subject to take a particular action needed in the sequence of events for a trial.
Mitch Shuring

PHILADELPHIA, PA — January 25, 2021 — Opertech Bio, Inc., today announced the publication of a seminal research article describing the application of its pioneering TāStation® technology to the pharmacological characterization of human taste discrimination. The findings are published in the peer-reviewed Journal of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics, JPET.

The paper, entitled "Rapid throughput concentration-response analysis of human taste discrimination," is the first to quantitatively define the concentration-response function for human taste discrimination, a crucial step in understanding the relationship between receptor activity and taste sensation. The paper is authored by the Opertech research team of R. Kyle Palmer, Mariah M. Stewart, and John Talley. The complete article is available at: DOI: https://doi.org/10.1124/jpet.120.000373.

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"The paper provides a rigorous scientific validation of TāStation® technology in the context of threshold sensory measurements and concentration-response analysis of sucrose and other sweeteners. The results are entirely consistent with receptor occupancy theory, implying that the taste discrimination concentration-response function is a direct reflection of the underlying activity of taste receptors" said Palmer, Opertech's chief science officer and lead author on the paper. "The methodology enabled by the TāStation® produced remarkable test-to-test repeatability of results, which proved critical for statistical resolution of effects in small groups of subjects and even among individual participants," he added.

- This press release was supplied by Opertech Bio. It has been edited for style

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