HSCI 100 Lecture Notes - Lecture 19: Color Blindness, Far-Sightedness, Rhodopsin

• School: Simon Fraser University
• Department: Health Sciences
• Course: HSCI 100
• Professor: Nienke Van Houten

Document Summary

Dendrites of neurons specialized to detect certain types of stimuli: exteroceptors: detect stimuli from outside the body (e. g. taste, hearing, vision, interoceptors: receive stimuli from inside the body (e. g. change in blood pressure) Nerve impulses travel to the cerebral cortex. Sensory adaptation, decrease in stimulus response, can occur with repetitive stimuli (e. g. odor) Receptors in the dermis that make the skin sensitive to touch, pressure, pain, temperature. Classes of receptors special senses: vision, hearing, equilibrium, smell, taste. Sensitive to sweet, sour, salty, bitter, umami tastes in food. 80-90% of what we perceive as taste is actually due to the sense of smell. Depends on 10-20 million olfactory cells (modified neurons) in the roof of the nasal cavity. Each olfactory cell is specific for a different odorant (molecule that smells") Olfactory bulb also connects with limbic system that creates emotion and memory. Anterior chamber: b/w the cornea & lens filled with a clear fluid called aqueous humor.