Neural Mountains in the Tongue

Neural Mountains in the Tongue

Elysia M James & Ana Caetano

The tongue is a multifunctional tissue involved in speech, eating and taste, while also serving as a protective barrier. Shown here is the bumpy surface of the tongue, called lingual papillae, that help to protect underlying cells from mechanical/chemical/physical stress. Some lingual papillae also house taste buds. This image shows nerve fibres reaching into the papilla, surrounded by support cells known as glia. Staining shows nerve terminals (pink), glia (cyan), epithelium (green) and nuclei (grey) in human developmental dorsal tongue.