Gustatory Loss and Recovery of Patients with Middle Ear Surgery

描述（由申请人提供）：味道是决定哪些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。我们认为这是因为食物的味道通常是其身份和可接受性的最重要标志。在这一点上，化学感觉临床患者谁提出的味觉投诉的两倍，可能会报告体重减轻那些谁提出嗅觉功能障碍（40%对20%）和享受食物less.We，因此，希望了解的损失和恢复的化学感觉味觉功能的患者在中耳手术过程中有医源性味觉神经损伤。支配舌头前三分之二味蕾的鼓索神经（CT）可能在手术过程中受损。作为一个临床问题，医生无法为他们的患者预测他们潜在的味觉丧失的程度或化学特异性，或者准确地预测正常功能何时恢复。从基础研究的角度来看，拟议的工作将调查人类脑神经和受体末端器官重新生长和再生的潜力。更好地了解完全再生的器官和组织具有很大的潜力，可以帮助我们了解其他不能自发再生的人体组织是如何被诱导再生的。该提案的目的是探索味觉的丧失和恢复作为手术期间发生的CT神经损伤类型的函数以及人类味蕾的伴随变化。

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.