Taste and olfaction

Question 1

Inability to taste

Answer 1

Aguesia

Question 2

Decreased ability to taste

Answer 2

Hypogeusia

Question 3

Distorted ability to taste

Answer 3

Dysguesia

Question 4

Sensation of bad taste in the absence of appropriate gustatory stimuli

Answer 4

Cacoguesia

Question 5

Any substance capable of stimulating the sense of taste

Answer 5

Tastant

Question 6

Inability to detect odours

Answer 6

Anosmia

Question 7

Decreased ability to detect odours

Answer 7

Hyposmia

Question 8

Distorted identification of smell

Answer 8

Dysosmia

Question 9

Altered perception in the presence of an odour

Answer 9

Parosmia

Question 10

Perception of smell without an odour present

Answer 10

Phantosmia

Question 11

Inability to classify or contrast odours, although able to detect odours

Answer 11

Agnosia

Question 12

Shape of taste buds

Answer 12

Onion shaped

Composed of 50-80 spindle shaped cells

Question 13

How are taste buds separated by the underlying connective tissue

Answer 13

Basement membrane

Question 14

How do taste buds communicate with oral environment

Answer 14

Taste pore

Question 15

Three types of taste buds classification

Answer 15

Type I, II and III

Question 16

Taste buds are a labile population, what does this mean

Answer 16

Continually being renewed, they are continuously turning over

Question 17

Specialised type of epithelium on the dorsum of the tongue

Answer 17

Gustatory epithelium

Question 18

5 categories of taste that taste buds recognise

Answer 18

Sweet 
Salty 
Bitter 
Sour 
Umami

Question 19

Which type of papillae on the tongue does not have taste buds

Answer 19

Filiform

Question 20

Type I (Glial- like cells)

Answer 20

• Most common (50% of taste bud cells)
• Degrade/ absorb neurotransmitters
• Important in the transduction of salty taste

Question 21

Type II (Receptor cells)

Answer 21

• Sweet, bitter, umami tastes activate receptor cells
  Contain vesicles
  Adjacent to intra- epithelial nerves
  Continually replaced
  Apical ends of the type II cells joined together by junctional complexes
  Microvilli project into the pores from their apical end

Question 22

Type III (Pre- synaptic cells)

Answer 22

• Receive input and are functionally connected to receptor cells
  Form synaptic junctions with nerve terminals
  Important in sour taste

Question 23

Cells in the olfactory epithelium

Answer 23

Olfactory receptor cells
Supporting cells
Basal cells
Brush cells

Labile population

Question 24

What happens in the olfactory bulb

Answer 24

Neurones synapse with olfactory ‘mitral’ cells which then pass info to various parts of the brain
It is the only sensory pathway which does not relay in the thalamus
Axons pass to various cortical regions