Taste and Smell Flashcards
what are the 5 basic tastes?
salty sour sweet bitter and unami
what are the three regions of the tongue?
circumvallate papillae. ffoliate papillae, fungiform papillae
what do some tastants contain?
small charged particles that directly change the membrane potential of receptor cells
what are other tastants bound to?
receptors
what is the transduction process for tastant cells?
tastant binds to recptor which sparks transduction chain leading to ion channel opening
what is cortical mapping and tastes?
basic tastes vary between subjects but is stable for each subject
what is smell?
our distant chemical sense
how does a distant chemical sense work?
discern information about chemical substances before coming into direct contact
what are the requirements for odorants? 3
small, volatile and hydrophobic
what are the odorant exceptions?
we can smell only molecules for which we have the receptors
what remains to be found in terms of odors?
exact link between physiochemical characteristics and the elicited odor i.e. two very similar compositions but two completely different smells
what is the primary purpose of the nose?
to filter , warm and humidify the air we breather
what is contained in the top of the nose?
olfactory celft with the olfacotry epithelium
how does transduction int the nose work?
odorant molecules bind to receptors and oppen ion gated channels
how many odorant recetptors in nose?
about 1000
what is shape theory?
may explain why sterioisomers smell differently
what is molecule vibration theory?
may explain why rats and amybe humans can smell different isotopes
how are odroants coded?
by the pattern of activity across different recptor types
how does signal get transmitted to cortex?
odorant binds to receptor then moves up olfactory sensory neuron then moves up cribiform plate to mitral cell where it is moved to primary olfacotry cortex and other brian structues
explain how people can be trained to smell odors?
no necessarily that they have more sesnsitive noses, but are just better at retrieving names if smells from memory
explain smell as a memory recall?
most intense emotional recollection, memories triggered by odors are distinctive in their emotionality
why can dogs smell better than humans?
they have the same strength of receptor, just have thousands more than humans
what is flavour perception?
many qualities of foods that we think we taste, are actually a function of smell
