Peer Review History

Original SubmissionFebruary 19, 2020
Decision Letter - Samuel J. Gershman, Editor

Dear Dr. zhao,

Thank you very much for submitting your manuscript "Taste of time: a porous-medium model for human tongue surface with implications for early taste perception" for consideration at PLOS Computational Biology. As with all papers reviewed by the journal, your manuscript was reviewed by members of the editorial board and by several independent reviewers. The reviewers appreciated the attention to an important topic. Based on the reviews, we are likely to accept this manuscript for publication, providing that you modify the manuscript according to the review recommendations.

Please prepare and submit your revised manuscript within 30 days. If you anticipate any delay, please let us know the expected resubmission date by replying to this email. 

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[1] A letter containing a detailed list of your responses to all review comments, and a description of the changes you have made in the manuscript. Please note while forming your response, if your article is accepted, you may have the opportunity to make the peer review history publicly available. The record will include editor decision letters (with reviews) and your responses to reviewer comments. If eligible, we will contact you to opt in or out

[2] Two versions of the revised manuscript: one with either highlights or tracked changes denoting where the text has been changed; the other a clean version (uploaded as the manuscript file).

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Thank you again for your submission to our journal. We hope that our editorial process has been constructive so far, and we welcome your feedback at any time. Please don't hesitate to contact us if you have any questions or comments.

Sincerely,

Samuel J. Gershman

Deputy Editor

PLOS Computational Biology

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Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Authors:

Please note here if the review is uploaded as an attachment.

Reviewer #1: The paper from Wu and Yhao provides an original paper on modeling the surface of the human tongue

as a porous medium in order to investigate temporal taste profile. The work is highly innovative and covers a topic that is not enoght studied. It is well written and worth to be published.

I have just a minor issue that would need to be addressed. The authors discuss about taste in general but the model was applied only to NaCl, NaSac and other sweet compounds, that do not test any bitter, sour, umami compounds and do not cover all basic taste modalities, i.e. sweet, bitter, salty, sour, umami. I would suggest to re-write the title and re-phrase discussion and conclusion specifying that and softening conclusions about taste in general. Since 1983-86, publication years for the papers of Kelling and Halpern, much more is known about taste compounds and their complicated chemistry. So I think that it is important to frame the applicability of the model developed in this work to the compounds that were actually tested and discuss the possible applicability of this model for other compounds and all taste modalities as a perspective.

Reviewer #2: Dear Authors,

The manuscript "Taste of time: a porous-medium model for human tongue surface with implications for early taste perception" is interesting and with new data. Please find below my comments in details:

1. The aim of this study was clearly defined.

2. The claims of this study are partially novel.

3. The claims are properly placed in the context of the previous literature.

4. The results of this study are well described. The significance of the results of Yours study can have the influence on the future physiological research of the sense of taste.

5. The methods which were used in this study are correct. Authors attached the additional file for support of this study.

6. The manuscript contains the original data. Some of the parts of figures are supporting from the reference list.

7. The details of the methodology are sufficient to allow the experiment to be reproduced.

8. The manuscript is well organized.

9. When I was checking this manuscript I found the previously version of this manuscript on-line:

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/780429v3

10. The nomenclature used in this manuscript is correct.

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Have all data underlying the figures and results presented in the manuscript been provided?

Large-scale datasets should be made available via a public repository as described in the PLOS Computational Biology data availability policy, and numerical data that underlies graphs or summary statistics should be provided in spreadsheet form as supporting information.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

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Attachments
Attachment
Submitted filename: PCOMPBIOL-D-20-00270.pdf
Revision 1

Attachments
Attachment
Submitted filename: Reply letter.doc
Decision Letter - Samuel J. Gershman, Editor

Dear Dr. zhao,

We are pleased to inform you that your manuscript 'Taste of time: a porous-medium model for human tongue surface with implications for early taste perception' has been provisionally accepted for publication in PLOS Computational Biology.

Before your manuscript can be formally accepted you will need to complete some formatting changes, which you will receive in a follow up email. A member of our team will be in touch with a set of requests.

Please note that your manuscript will not be scheduled for publication until you have made the required changes, so a swift response is appreciated.

IMPORTANT: The editorial review process is now complete. PLOS will only permit corrections to spelling, formatting or significant scientific errors from this point onwards. Requests for major changes, or any which affect the scientific understanding of your work, will cause delays to the publication date of your manuscript.

Should you, your institution's press office or the journal office choose to press release your paper, you will automatically be opted out of early publication. We ask that you notify us now if you or your institution is planning to press release the article. All press must be co-ordinated with PLOS.

Thank you again for supporting Open Access publishing; we are looking forward to publishing your work in PLOS Computational Biology. 

Best regards,

Samuel J. Gershman

Deputy Editor

PLOS Computational Biology

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Formally Accepted
Acceptance Letter - Samuel J. Gershman, Editor

PCOMPBIOL-D-20-00270R1

Taste of time: a porous-medium model for human tongue surface with implications for early taste perception

Dear Dr Zhao,

I am pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been formally accepted for publication in PLOS Computational Biology. Your manuscript is now with our production department and you will be notified of the publication date in due course.

The corresponding author will soon be receiving a typeset proof for review, to ensure errors have not been introduced during production. Please review the PDF proof of your manuscript carefully, as this is the last chance to correct any errors. Please note that major changes, or those which affect the scientific understanding of the work, will likely cause delays to the publication date of your manuscript.

Soon after your final files are uploaded, unless you have opted out, the early version of your manuscript will be published online. The date of the early version will be your article's publication date. The final article will be published to the same URL, and all versions of the paper will be accessible to readers.

Thank you again for supporting PLOS Computational Biology and open-access publishing. We are looking forward to publishing your work!

With kind regards,

Sarah Hammond

PLOS Computational Biology | Carlyle House, Carlyle Road, Cambridge CB4 3DN | United Kingdom ploscompbiol@plos.org | Phone +44 (0) 1223-442824 | ploscompbiol.org | @PLOSCompBiol

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