Study On The Effect Of Electric Pulse Stimulation On The Enhancement Of The Taste Sense

Virtual reality technology can create and provide users the experience beyond the reality of the feeling and in the virtual environment,and it has a wide range of applications in the fields of scientific research,medical treatment,education and so on.At present,the virtual technology of vision,touch and hearing is developed rapidly,but there is a limited work on virtual taste.The results reported showed that low voltage electrical stimulation can produce different taste sensation.In this thesis,a variety of pulse signal generation and feeding device were designed to study the taste sensation caused by different waveforms,frequencies,duty cycles and electrode material pulses.The results of this study will provide a reference for the virtual method to produce taste sensation.Data acquisition card and singlechip microcomputer were used to generate electrical pulse to construct the signal generation generator,and designed different food appliance model electrical pulse transmission generators.Through the data acquisition card electric pulse generator can produce square wave,sine wave,triangular wave,sawtooth wave with four kinds of waveforms within 1000 Hz frequency pulses,and the singlechip microcomputer electrical pulse generator can generate pulse width modulation(PWM)waveform,the frequency of 2000 kHz duty cycle electrical pulses.The electric pulse transmission generator of different food appliance models can transfer electrical pulses to the tongue.The taste sensation produced by the stimulation of low frequency pulse was studied.From the results,the taste of sour increased with the increase of temperature,salty increased with temperature and then weakened,sweet decreased with the increase of temperature,and bitter increased with temperature and then weakened.Electric pulse can stimulate the tongue to produce a certain taste,mainly sour taste,salty taste,bitter taste and spicy tingling.Simulation of feeding solid or liquid food,under the condition of four kinds of waveform electric pulses,all can produce sour taste.The sour taste produced by simulating the feeding of liquid food was stronger than the sour taste produced by simulating the feeding of solid food.The taste sensation was enhanced with the increase of the voltage,and the spicy tingling was always accompanied by a large voltage.When the feeding of solid food was simulated,the salty taste was the strongest at the frequency of 1000 Hz,voltage 4V and temperature of 20 ? under the stimulation of triangular wave,which was equivalent to the salty taste of 1.3%NaCl solution.Simulation of the feeding of liquid food,in the square wave electric pulse stimulation,the frequency of 600 Hz,the voltage was 4V,the temperature of 40 ? under the conditions of the strongest sense of sour,was equivalent to 0.3%citric acid solution acidity.The PWM electric pulse was generated by a singlechip microcomputer electric pulse generator,and the sour taste of stimulating the tip of the tongue was studied under the conditions of different electrodes,frequencies and duty cycles.Simulation on solid or liquid food,6 different materials(stainless steel,copper,brass,gold,silver,platinum)electrode stimulation conditions,can produce a certain taste,mainly sour taste,salty taste,bitter taste and spicy tingling,which were given priority to with sour taste.Simulation of the feeding of solid food,the sour taste was more miscellaneous and accompanied by spicy tingling,and simulation of the feeding of liquid food,the sour taste was less and more pure taste.At the same duty cycle(60%),under the same electrode condition,the sour taste of the simulated the feeding of liquid food was stronger than the sour taste produced when simulating the feeding of solid food.Under the same electrode condition,the effect of frequency on the sour taste was small,and the duty cycle had a great influence on the sour taste.In the same frequency and duty cycle conditions,the silver electrode on the sour taste of a greater impact,but the stainless steel electrode on the sour taste of a smaller impact.At the same electrode and frequency,the sour taste was enhanced with increasing voltage.The simulation of the feeding of solid food,the use of brass electrode,the frequency of 1000kHz when the sour taste was strong and contained weak mixed flavor,was equivalent to 0.1%citric acid solution corresponding to the sour taste.In the case of the simulation of the feeding of liquid food,the use of copper electrode,and the frequency of 800 kHz,the sour taste was strong and contained weak mixed flavor,and was equivalent of 0.3%citric acid solution corresponding to the sour taste.Stimulation of the tongue with electric pulses can produce a certain taste sensation,including sour taste,salty taste,bitter taste,and spicy tingling,selecting the appropriate waveform,frequency,duty cycle and electrode to obtain a single taste.