Earco and electronic noses have been existing for some time now. A sense of artificial taste, however, would be a novelty, and there are those who work hard to make it reality. The last steps forward towards this “electronic language” come from researchers from the University of the Academy of Sciences of Beijing: a device that uses graphene and artificial intelligence to recognize bitter, savory, sweet and acid flavors in a similar way to what happens in our mouth. One day, it could help restore the sense of taste to patients with neurological damage and neurodegenerative diseases that cause anosmia (loss, in fact, of the sense of taste).
The super-material that “loves” the water
Grafene is a material very designed for the production of innovative chemical sensors, because it changes its electric conductivity when it interacts with different types of substances, thus allowing to recognize them. In their study, presented on the pages of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Chinese researchers have used its derivative, graphene oxide, which has similar properties combined with a marked hydrophilia, the ability to bind with water, which allows the sensor to work even in humid environments and thus replicate more faithfully what happens in our mouth.
With this material, Chinese researchers have built a memorial, an electronic component that has the particularity of modifying their electrical resistance according to the amount of current that crossed it, as if it “remembered” the electronic states in which it was found. The device then comes into contact with chemicals, modifies its electrical resistance and this information is transmitted to an artificial intelligence that interprets it and attributes to it a flavor, whose memory that is stored directly in the sensor.
So he recognizes the flavors 9 times out of 10
This, at least, the theory. And in fact, once the device has been put to the test, the device did not betray the expectations of its creators: after being “trained” to recognize different flavors, it has shown a precision of 90 percent in identifying them again when they have been recurred. According to Chinese researchers, it was able not only to recognize simple flavors, such as dessert or salty, but also complex tastes such as coffee or coca cola.
For now – it is good to clarify it – it is just a prototype. But the results are extremely promising and its inventors ensure that they will continue to work to make the new “electronic language” more compact and to verify that the materials of which it is composed are not harmful to biological tissues. The final goal, in fact, is to transform it into a implantable device, or perhaps wearable, and to find a way to connect it with the human brain. At that point, it would represent a perfect prosthesis to return the sense of taste to people who have lost it due to accidents, diseases, or neurodegenerative disorders such as Parkinson’s or multiple sclerosis.
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