BIO 3303 Study Guide - Midterm Guide: Cribriform Plate, Taste Bud, Sensillum
22 Apr 2016
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Practice midterm: (2 marks) action potentials are the signal of communication used by the sensory system to get a message to the integrating centre. There are four stimulus characteristics that action potentials can encode. Choose two of these characteristics and explain how the all-or-none ap signal is able to encode differences in stimulus. Stimulus intensity can be encoded by frequency of aps sent to integrating centre. Aps will be proportionaly more frequent as intensity rises. Stimulus type is encoded by which receptor is activated. Labeled line theory suggests that one stimulus type is encoded by one receptor and one neuron. Polymodal receptors use temporal patters of ap for encoding which stimulus activated. Stimulus location is encoded by receptive fields. Firing will be tonic or phasic to encode duration or change: (2 marks) the figure below illustrates the concept of dynamic range for a given receptor. Any of the steps of sensory transduction can set the top of the dynamic range.
