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Welcome to brain Stuff from how Stuff Works,

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Hey, brain Stuff, Lauren Volga bomb here. Spiciness

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is a very personal preference. Some

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like their food hot, some like it even

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hotter, and some won't even start

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to chow down until they've slopped on the saracha,

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piled on the halapenos, and laid on

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enough horseradish too literally bring tears

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to their eyes, which practically

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begs the question, what's wrong with

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those people? Do these folks actually

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enjoy watering eyes, as searing tongue and

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a runny nose at the dinner table? But

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more alarmingly, one might wonder are

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they setting themselves up for everything else

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to taste extra bland? Can spicy

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food burn out your taste buds?

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Robin Dando studies exactly these types

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of questions and Assistant professor

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in the Department of Food Science at Cornell,

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Dando has spent his albeit still young

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career studying how our bodies interact

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with the food that we consume and

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what comes to spicy foods in our bodies. It's

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a tricky one when you put a

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spicy food in your mouth, whether it's a halopeno

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or whatever is in that five alarm chili you

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just ordered. You're often ingesting a chemical

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compound found in peppers called cap

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sasin. Kept saysin interacts with

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receptors in your mouth, which immediately send

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a signal to your brain. The signal goes

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something like this, fire, fire,

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hot, hot, hot fire. It's

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not some joke that your mouth is playing on

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your brain, or not quite. The

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receptors in your mouth react to the cap says

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in the same way they would if there were an actual

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fire on your tongue. That's why

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the brain, which takes these things quite literally

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sets off your body's sprinkler system.

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Your heart starts racing, firing up

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that fight or flight mechanism. Your blood

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rushes to the skin surface to cool things

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down. You start to salivate, Your nose

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may start to run. For some people,

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this is considered fun. It's a culinary

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experience. They can't get enough of it.

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For those who prefer more subtle tastes and

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dry eyes, the whole idea of two

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spicy foods maybe difficult to comprehend,

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but too many spicy food lovers it's

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the hotter the better. Although

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it may seem like a fifty shades of red kind

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of thing. Dando says that people who

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eat extremely spicy foods often

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do it because they have to in order to get

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the experience. That's because spicy

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food connosours probably build up a tolerance

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to spiciness. Dando said,

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there's some pretty strong evidence that suggests

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that you can, we would call it desensitization.

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Simply being exposed to something constantly,

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you start to build up a tolerance to it.

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Physically speaking, desensitization can

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act at the nerve, at the receptor,

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or in the brain. Dando explains. Essentially,

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if you're stimulating a nerve a lot, it can

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become less responsive with kepsays,

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and in particular, one of the neurotransmitters

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responsible for signaling pain to the brain

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can become depleted easily. Likewise,

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a cell can reprogram to express

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fewer of its receptors if they're frequently

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in use. And finally, the brain

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can basically turn down the volume

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of a signal in the short term. It's

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like how if you get in cold water at the beach.

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It's intensely cold, but in a minute

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or so it doesn't feel so frigid. If

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you've ever been a spicy food fanatic, you may

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have wondered what year after year of all

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of that fiery goodness may be doing to

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your taste buds. For sure, spicy

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foods can get to some people. They've been associated

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with acid reflux and heartburn. But

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as far as your mouth and those precious taste

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buds go, don't worry. Dando

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says. People seem to talk about spicy

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food destroys your taste buds. That's

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not really true. It's not physically damaging

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the tissues. It's just kind of simulating

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the conditions where they would get damaged. So

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spice it up, brave foodies, and keep

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a glass of whole milk or a side of bread

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or rice handy just in case. Today's

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episode was written by John Donovan and produced

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by Tyler Clang. For more on this and

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lots of other Red Hot topics, visit our home

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planet, how Stuff Works dot com