Lecture 6 vocab Flashcards
What percent of the synapses in the nervous system are chemical(with neurotransmitters and receptors)?
About 90%
What percent of the synapses in the brain are electrical(via gap junctions)?
About 10%
How do electrical synaptic communications occur?
Through gap junctions
What do gap junction proteins(connexins) form?
A pore between 2 cells
What type of synapses do metabotropic receptors bind to?
Chemical synapses
What flows through electrical synapses?
Ions flow through the gap junction channels
What are sensations constrained by?
They are constrained by what can be detected by receptors and what can be interpreted by the brain
What are the steps of all sensory systems to get to sensation and perception?
Stimulus in the environment, receptor cells(receptor potential), relay/afferent neurons(action potentials), pathways to neurons in higher brain, then sensation and perception
What is the chemosensory system?
It is sensory receptors specialized to bind chemical stimuli(Smell and taste)
What sensory receptors consist of the chemosensory system?
Olfaction(smell) and Gustation(taste)
What is the difference between taste and smell?
Taste is an immediate sense, a final checkpoint for the acceptability of food before entering the body and smell is more distant, it allows us to detect small concentrations of airborne substances
What do olfactory sensory neurons in the nose contain?
Odorant receptors
What do odorant molecules in the air bind to?
Receptors expressed on olfactory sensory neurons in the nose
How many types of odorant receptors do olfactory sensory neurons each have?
1
How many types of odorant receptors are there?
350
What is another way to say odorant receptors?
Metabotropic receptors
What is combinatorial coding(population coding)?
A single odorant receptor can recognize multiple odorants and one odorant is recognized by a specific combination of different receptors
What does olfactory sensory neurons expressing a single type of odorant receptor do?
They respond to multiple odors with different strength responses
Where do olfactory sensory neurons in the nose project to?
The olfactory bulb
What happens in the olfactory bulb?
The olfactory sensory neurons are grouped into specialized structures called glomeruli
What is it called when the olfactory sensory neurons are grouped into specialized structures in the olfactory bulb?
Glomeruli
What do all olfactory sensory neurons with the same odorant receptor connect to?
They all connect to the same glomerulus
What do transduce chemical signals(odors) turn into?
Electrical signals(APs)
Through what do olfactory sensory neurons carry the electrical signals(APs) along their axons?
Through the olfactory nerve to the olfactory bulb in the brain
What are Mitral and tufted cells?
They are the neurons that connect to the olfactory bulb to higher order olfactory brain regions
What is the only sense that skips the thalamus?
Olfaction
What do all other sensory information except for olfaction have to travel to before reaching cortex?
The thalamus
What cells carry odor information to the piriform cortex and the amygdala after it travelled through the olfactory bulb?
Mitral and tufted cells
What is the piriform cortex?
Primary olfactory cortex
What does the piriform cortex do?
It is used for identifying smells
What is the amygdala?
It is for emotional responses, to smell
Is there an apparent organization in the primary olfactory cortex?
No, its random(the connections from the olfactory bulb to the piriform cortex)
What does the random organization of the primary olfactory cortex mean for the activation of neurons with smell?
It means that 1 smell will activate neurons that are spread out all over the piriform cortex region