OLFACTION – CHEMOSENSATION

Question 1

What is smell/olfaction?

Answer 1

what happens through your nose

Question 2

What is flavour?

Answer 2

combination of taste, smell, somatosensation/mouth feel, and more that leads to the overall Gestalt of a particular food

Question 3

What is retrograde olfaction?

Answer 3

smell through nasopharyngeal pathway

Question 4

What is discriminative capacity?

Answer 4

breadth of different stimuli that system can tell apart

Question 5

Odorant Receptors: Evolution of multi-gene families

Answer 5

evolve quickly – different species have dramatically different numbers of functional odorant receptors

Question 6

Model for Odour Processing Between Mitral Cells and Piriform Cortex

Answer 6

very similar to PN > KC connections, but with more inhibition

Question 7

Briefly describe an experiment you would do to examine how odours are represented in the
cortical amygdala.

Answer 7

load the cortical amygdala with a calcium sensitive dye, and measure calcium signals in cells while exposing the mouse to different odours