Gustatory Loss and Recovery of Patients with Middle Ear Surgery

描述（由申请人提供）：味道是决定食物被接受或拒绝的最重要的感觉。它是什么进入胃和什么被拒绝的最终仲裁者。我们认为这是因为一般来说，食物的味道是其身份和可接受性的最重要标志。到目前为止，表现出味觉抱怨的化学感觉临床患者报告体重减轻的可能性是表现出嗅觉功能障碍的患者的两倍（40%对20%），并且不太喜欢食物。因此，我们希望了解医源性味觉神经损伤患者在中耳手术中化学感觉味觉功能的丧失和恢复。支配舌头前三分之二味蕾的鼓室索神经（CT）可能在手术中受损。作为一个临床问题，医生无法为患者预测他们潜在味觉丧失的程度或化学特异性，也无法准确地预测正常功能何时会恢复。从基础研究的角度出发，研究人类脑神经和受体末端器官再生和再生的潜力。更好地了解一个完全再生的器官和组织有很大的潜力帮助我们理解其他不能自发再生的人体组织是如何被诱导这样做的。本提案的目的是探讨味觉知觉的丧失和恢复作为手术中发生的CT神经损伤类型的功能以及伴随的人类味蕾的变化。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Taste is the paramount sense governing which foods are accepted or rejected. It is the final arbiter of what goes into the stomach and what is rejected. We believe this is because the taste of food is, in general, the most important marker of its identity and acceptability. To this point, chemosensory clinical patients who present with taste complaints are twice as likely to report weight loss as those who present with olfactory dysfunction (40% vs. 20%) and enjoy food less. We, therefore, wish to understand the loss and recovery of chemosensory taste function in patients who have iatrogenic taste nerve damage during middle ear surgery. The chorda tympani (CT) nerve, which innervates the taste buds of the anterior two-thirds of the tongue, may be damaged during this surgery. As a clinical problem, the physician is unable to predict for their patient the degree or chemospecificity of their potential taste loss or precisely when normal function will return. From a basic research perspective, the proposed work will investigate the potential for a human cranial nerve and receptor end organs to re-grow and regenerate. A better understanding of a fully regenerating organ and tissue has great potential to help us understand how other human tissues, which do not spontaneously regenerate, may be induced to do so. The Aims of this proposal are to explore the loss and recovery of taste perception as a function of the type of CT nerve damage that occurs during surgery and the concomitant changes to human taste buds.