Taste and Smell

Question 1

what are the 5 basic tastes?

Answer 1

salty sour sweet bitter and unami

Question 2

what are the three regions of the tongue?

Answer 2

circumvallate papillae. ffoliate papillae, fungiform papillae

Question 3

what do some tastants contain?

Answer 3

small charged particles that directly change the membrane potential of receptor cells

Question 4

what are other tastants bound to?

Answer 4

receptors

Question 5

what is the transduction process for tastant cells?

Answer 5

tastant binds to recptor which sparks transduction chain leading to ion channel opening

Question 6

what is cortical mapping and tastes?

Answer 6

basic tastes vary between subjects but is stable for each subject

Question 7

what is smell?

Answer 7

our distant chemical sense

Question 8

how does a distant chemical sense work?

Answer 8

discern information about chemical substances before coming into direct contact

Question 9

what are the requirements for odorants? 3

Answer 9

small, volatile and hydrophobic

Question 10

what are the odorant exceptions?

Answer 10

we can smell only molecules for which we have the receptors

Question 11

what remains to be found in terms of odors?

Answer 11

exact link between physiochemical characteristics and the elicited odor i.e. two very similar compositions but two completely different smells

Question 12

what is the primary purpose of the nose?

Answer 12

to filter , warm and humidify the air we breather

Question 13

what is contained in the top of the nose?

Answer 13

olfactory celft with the olfacotry epithelium

Question 14

how does transduction int the nose work?

Answer 14

odorant molecules bind to receptors and oppen ion gated channels

Question 15

how many odorant recetptors in nose?

Answer 15

about 1000

Question 16

what is shape theory?

Answer 16

may explain why sterioisomers smell differently

Question 17

what is molecule vibration theory?

Answer 17

may explain why rats and amybe humans can smell different isotopes

Question 18

how are odroants coded?

Answer 18

by the pattern of activity across different recptor types

Question 19

how does signal get transmitted to cortex?

Answer 19

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

Question 20

explain how people can be trained to smell odors?

Answer 20

no necessarily that they have more sesnsitive noses, but are just better at retrieving names if smells from memory

Question 21

explain smell as a memory recall?

Answer 21

most intense emotional recollection, memories triggered by odors are distinctive in their emotionality

Question 22

why can dogs smell better than humans?

Answer 22

they have the same strength of receptor, just have thousands more than humans

Question 23

what is flavour perception?

Answer 23

many qualities of foods that we think we taste, are actually a function of smell