Deciphering how molecular events underlying taste perception are central to sensory and flavor modulation. The key lies in elucidating how receptors convert chemical recognition into activation signals through conformational changes. Taste arises from two major receptor families: G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) and ion channel receptors, which convert chemical stimuli into neural responses through distinct signaling pathways. GPCRs mediate the discrimination of sweet, umami, and bitter, while ion channels rapidly detect sour and salt, together forming a complementary system. Advances in X-ray crystallography and cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM) have revealed structural features, conformational dynamics, and signaling mechanisms of diverse taste receptors, deepening insight into taste formation and supporting modern taste theory. This review provides an overview of research on the mechanism of taste formation, highlights key structural analysis technologies, and discusses remaining challenges and future directions. The findings provide theoretical foundations for flavor regulation and therapeutic approaches to taste disorders, advancing molecular-level research in food sensory science.

The perception of salty taste is crucial for individuals to make healthy food choices. Yet, the brain electrophysiological signals underlying salty taste perception have been poorly described. In this study, electroencephalography (EEG) was used to record brain activity induced by NaCl solution as a salty taste stimulus. A combination of a custom delivery device and stimulation paradigm was employed to preserve the salty taste signal clearly. A stimulus-response capture method was proposed that could adapt to individual differences in brain responses to salty taste and accurately segment salty taste response signals. Applying this method to the EEG processing workflow can form a complete data processing framework. The results showed that the neural response induced by salty taste reached a high activity level in the initial stage within a short period (0.2 s), and there was a sustained periodic response within 0.75 s after the stimulation. Moreover, the salty taste information in the EEG signal was decoded, and discrimination of 2 similar concentrations of salty taste solutions was achieved far above the chance level (average identification rate: 89.66%). This study demonstrated experimental paradigms and research methods for understanding salty taste perception, which could provide references for research on other basic tastes.