PSYB51H3 Lecture Notes - Retina, Taste Receptor, Anesthesia
Document Summary
Olfaction and gestation are often grouped together as the chemical senses. In terms of physiology , these two sensory systems are in some ways quite similar. Taste serves the most specific function of any of the senses: it controls which chemicals we need to ingest because they are nutritious and which we need to spit out because they may be poisonous. To the early greeks, sensations perceived from foods and beverages in the mouth were tastes ands sensations perceived by sniffing were smells. But food molecules are almost always perceived by both our gustatory and our olfactory systems. The molecules we taste are dissolved in out saliva and passed over the taste receptors our taste buds. When we chew and swallow our food, other molecules are released into the air inside our mouths and forced up behind the palate into the nasal cavity where they contact the olfactory epithelium and stimulate our olfactory receptors.
