Chapter 8 Flashcards
The Chemical Senses (19 cards)
Gustation
The sense of taste.
Olfaction
The sense of smell.
Chemoreceptors
Any sensory receptor selective for chemicals.
Papillae
A small protuberance on the surface of the tongue that contains taste buds.
Taste Buds
A cluster of cells, including taste receptor cells, in papillae of the tongue.
Taste Receptor Cells
A modified epithelial cell that transduces taste stimuli.
Receptor Potential
A stimulus-induced change in the membrane potential of a sensory receptor.
Transduction
The transformation of sensory stimulus energy into a cellular signal, such as a receptor potential.
Gustatory Nucleus
A nucleus in the brain stem that receives primary taste input.
Ventral Posterior Medial (VPM) nucleus
The part of the ventral posterior nucleus of the thalamus that receives somatosensory input from the face, including afferents from the tongue.
Primary Gustatory Cortex
The area of neocortex that receives taste information from the ventroposterior medial nucleus.
Population Coding
The representation of sensory, motor, or cognitive information by activity distributed over a large number of neurons. An example is color, which is encoded by the relative activity of the types of retinal cones.
Pheromones
An olfactory stimulus used for chemical communication between individuals.
Olfactory Epithelium
A sheet of cells lining part of the nasal passages that contains olfactory receptor neurons.
Olfactory Bulb
A bulb-shaped brain structure derived from the telencephalon that receives input from olfactory receptor neurons.
Glomeruli
A cluster of neurons in the olfactory bulb that receives input from olfactory receptor neurons.
Olfactory Cortex
The region of the cerebral cortex connected to the olfactory bulb and separated from the neocortex by the rhinal fissure.
Sensory Map
A representation of sensory information within a neural structure that preserves the spatial organization of that information established on the sensory organ. Examples are retinotopic maps in the superior colliculus, lateral geniculate nucleus, and visual cortex, where neurons in specific places respond selectively to stimulation of specific parts of the retina.
Temporal Coding
The representation of information by the timing of action potentials rather than by their average rate.
