Most of the cell types in your body appear in many places — for example, humans have photoreceptors throughout our nervous systems, not just our eyes. So it seems strange that taste receptors would only be found on the tongue.
Turns out, you actually have taste receptors throughout your body; you just can’t taste what they’re tasting, said Nirupa Chaudhari, a professor of physiology and biophysics at the Miller School of Medicine at the University of Miami.
However, the mouth is the only place you’ll find taste buds, which require two things: a cluster of cells and nerves that connect it to the region of the brain that perceives taste, Chaudhari told Live Science.
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