Development of model mouth for food oral processing studies: Present challenges and scopes

Food oral processing research covers the study of mastication, role of tongue, teeth, and palate, food-saliva interaction, bolus formation, texture and flavor perceptions, etc. Over the preceding decades, instrumental approaches were advanced to evaluate texture, flavor, and other physicochemical changes by simulating some form of oral functionalities and environments. However, a comprehensive assessment of food products under actual oral processing is still an open topic of research, and has many persisting challenges. Present experimental methods utilize a number of different instruments and feedbacks from trained human panel in order to draw some form of correlations between physicochemical properties of the food composition and its sensorial properties. Major shortfalls of these existing instruments are their justifiable limitation to become a true representation of actual oral conditions and mechanisms. It therefore leads to contemplate on an ambitious objective to develop a device closely resembling the processes and mechanisms of human mouth. This paper proposes a review of the development of artificial mouth and masticatory devices designed specifically for food oral processing studies. The devices which have been exclusively built for other purposes such as dental treatment, speech therapy, jaw simulation, etc. are judicially excluded from this review. The article further covered a state of the art on engineering interpretation of oral features. Following on, sincere attempts have been made to identify and classify the challenges and research gaps including the interdisciplinary nature of the field. This review has been summarized with guidelines for follow-up research and development in the direction of advance instrumentalization of food oral processing covering the research interests from both academics and food industries.