Bioinspired robotics to understand how food structure affects salivation, mastication, texture perception and swallowing.

• Title: Bioinspired robotics to understand how food structure affects salivation, mastication, texture perception and swallowing.
• Location: Unité mixte de recherche SayFood, campus Agro Paris-Saclay, Palaiseau (91120), FRANCE
• Application deadline: 06 November 2026
   

Context: Various complementary in vitro approaches have been developed over the past ten years to study different aspects of Food Oral Processing (FOP), namely salivation, oral lubrication and swallowing. This doctoral project aims to better understand the effect of food structure and acidity on salivation, mastication, bolus formation, texture perception and swallowing and to reproduce realistically and holistically these key mechanisms in vitro.

Project outline: This project will start with a complete analysis of the scientific literature on the mechanisms governing salivation, followed by the development of sensors for real-time measurement of food and bolus properties during Food Oral Processing. Such novel sensors will be used for a more realistic control of in vitro food oral processing. A sensory study and an in vivo characterization of the effect of different food products on salivation and bolus formation will also be performed and used to calibrate the in vitro food oral processing experiments. In vitro and in vivo measurements will be used to understand how food structure affects salivation, mastication, texture perception and swallowing.

Contact: Marco Ramaioli, marco.ramaioli@inrae.fr

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