Although it had been well documented that people varied widely in their sensitivities to bitter compounds, the intercorrelation of these sensitivities remained unknown. By clustering bitter compounds representative of different chemical classes as a function of individual sensitivities, it was possible to infer the number and variety of potential bitterness transduction systems involved in bitter perception. Results indicated that bitter compounds could be grouped into two general groups, neither of which contains PROP (n-propylthiouracil). There are also subjects who possess diminished absolute sensitivity to bitter stimuli, but do not differ in their relative sensitivities to these compounds.
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