October 11, 2018 Preprint Open Access

Andersen, Camilla Arndal; Alfine, Lorenzo; Ohla, Kathrin; Höchenberger, Richard

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{
  "inLanguage": {
    "alternateName": "eng", 
    "@type": "Language", 
    "name": "English"
  }, 
  "description": "<p>Taste research has been hampered by technical difficulties, mostly because liquid taste stimuli are difficult to control in terms of timing and application area. Exact stimulus control requires a gustometer; yet, existing devices are either not well-documented or rather inflexible. We designed a gustometer based on a computer-controlled, modular pump system, which can be extended through additional hardware modules, e.g. for heating of the stimuli or sending and receiving triggers. All components are available for purchase &ldquo;off-the-shelf&rdquo;. The pumps deliver liquids through plastic tubing and can be connected to commercially available or custom-made mouthpieces. We determined the temporal precision of the device. Onset delay showed minuscule variation within pumps (SD &lt; 3 ms) and small differences between pumps (&lt; 4.5 ms). Rise time was less than 2 ms (SD &lt; 2 ms). Dosage volume bias was only 2%. To test whether the hemitongues could be stimulated independently, we conducted a behavioral experiment. 18 participants received tasteless stimuli to the left, right, or both sides of the tongue. The side of stimulation was correctly identified in 91% of the trials, indicating that the setup is suitable for lateralized stimulation. EEG responses to water and salty stimuli were recorded from two participants; the stimulation successfully evoked event-related responses, demonstrating the suitability of the device for use in electrophysiological investigations. We provide a Python-based open-source software package and a web interface to easily operate the system. We thereby hope to facilitate access to state-of-the-art taste research methods and to increase reproducibility across laboratories.</p>", 
  "license": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/legalcode", 
  "creator": [
    {
      "affiliation": "DuPont Nutrition & Health, Brabrand, Denmark; Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark", 
      "@id": "https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7655-3715", 
      "@type": "Person", 
      "name": "Andersen, Camilla Arndal"
    }, 
    {
      "affiliation": "German Institute of Human Nutrition Potsdam-Rehbruecke, Nuthetal, Germany", 
      "@type": "Person", 
      "name": "Alfine, Lorenzo"
    }, 
    {
      "affiliation": "German Institute of Human Nutrition Potsdam-Rehbruecke, Nuthetal, Germany; Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine (INM-3), Research Center J\u00fclich, J\u00fclich, Germany", 
      "@id": "https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7265-0449", 
      "@type": "Person", 
      "name": "Ohla, Kathrin"
    }, 
    {
      "affiliation": "German Institute of Human Nutrition Potsdam-Rehbruecke, Nuthetal, Germany; Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine (INM-3), Research Center J\u00fclich, J\u00fclich, Germany", 
      "@id": "https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0380-4798", 
      "@type": "Person", 
      "name": "H\u00f6chenberger, Richard"
    }
  ], 
  "headline": "A new gustometer: Template for the construction of a portable and modular stimulator for taste and lingual touch.", 
  "image": "https://zenodo.org/static/img/logos/zenodo-gradient-round.svg", 
  "datePublished": "2018-10-11", 
  "url": "https://zenodo.org/record/1456663", 
  "keywords": [
    "gustometer", 
    "taste stimulator", 
    "taste", 
    "stimulator", 
    "gustation", 
    "flavor", 
    "touch"
  ], 
  "@context": "https://schema.org/", 
  "identifier": "https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1456663", 
  "@id": "https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1456663", 
  "@type": "ScholarlyArticle", 
  "name": "A new gustometer: Template for the construction of a portable and modular stimulator for taste and lingual touch."
}