Special Senses 1 Flashcards
What are the four specialized senses?
Taste, smell, sight, hearing
What is different about the sense of touch
It’s a general, widespread sense
What type of receptor is used in the eye to allow us to pick up visual cues?
Photoreceptors
What senses use mechanoreceptors?
Hearing
What senses use chemoreceptors
taste and smell
What are taste buds?
organs of taste
What are the specialized cells for taste
gustatory cells
What are the five different tastes
sweet, salty, bitter, sour, umami
What different types of chemicals do our taste buds pick up
sugars (sweet), amino acids (umami), sodium chloride and other salts (salty), alkaloids (bitter) and acids (sour).
how is flavor detected by taste cells?
The chemical substance responsible for the taste is freed in the mouth and comes into contact with a nerve cell. It activates the cell by changing specific proteins in the wall of the sensory cell
What other senses can be involved in our sense of taste?
Temperature
Olfaction
Pain
Texture
What are the specialized cells that contain receptors for different odors
Olfactory receptors
How is smell detected?
Hair cells in the olfactory organs contain proteins that stimulate receptors. When that chemical receptor is stimulated, it sends a signal to the olfactory nerve in the brain.
Why do we experience anosmia when we are sick?
The membranes in our nose swell and block the receptors
Why do boxers sometimes lose their sense of smell
Sometimes blows to the head can cause damage in the olfactory nerves in the brain
What are two distinct functions of the ear
Hearing and equilibrium
What does the tympanic membrane do
The tympanic membrane vibrates as sound waves hit it.
What does the auricle do
Funnels sound waves into the tympanic membrane
What are the three ossicles
Malleus, incus, stapes
Where are the ossicles located
Middle ear
How do the ossicles participate in our sense of hearing
They vibrate and the stapes taps on the oval window, moving the fluid in the cochlea
How are the oval window and round window involved during sound detection
Vibrations in the oval window cause the fluid in the cochlea to move around
What are the three channels inside the cochlea called?
Scala vestibuli, scala media, scala tympani
The specialized cells hair cells (organ of Corti) in the inner ear allow you to hear - explain their location (with reference to the three ‘channels’ of the cochlea) and how they are involved in sound detection.
The organ of court is sandwiched between the two chambers of the cochlea in the cochlear duct. As the fluid in the other channels move, it pushes down on the walls of the cochlear duct and bend the hair cells on the organ of corti. The bending of these hairs cause mechanoreceptors to fire and cause an action potential.
