Question

Post-viral olfactory loss Ageusia You will provide a brief explanation, in your own words, about how the senses of smell and taste function. You will start with the detection of stimuli by receptors. You should include the location and structure of receptors, and describe how they react to stimuli. Address how the signal is passed from receptors into the CNS....include pathway and the eventual location of cortex that is able to interpret the sensation, leading to perception. Your discussion should include a comparison between these two special senses. How are gustation and olfaction similar, and how are they different. The second part of your discussion will address two pathological conditions. Pick one pathology from each list and provide a brief description of the condition. You will be required to do additional research using additional resources beyond your textbook - ensure that you cite your sources. What anatomical feature or physiological process is affected that leads to perceivable signs or symptoms?

Answer 1

The sense of taste and smell are related to each other as they use same type of receptors. Both of them are taken from the environment.

Human detect taste from the receptors called as taste buds. Receptors are uniformly distributed in the tongue. The odour that we smell are from molecules in air. Humans have 350 olfactory receptors. The sense of smell and taste senses at the back of throat. Both the smell and taste have chemoreceptors which senses the chemical environment.

When a specific stimulus cames the receptors get activated and this signals to the brain. Odorants enter the nose and dissolve in the epithelium. Receptor is a neuron which responds and send impulse directly to olfactory bulb in the brain. Olfactory neurons are bipolar neurons with single dendrite buried in olfactory epithelium. In case of taste transduction of five taste happens through a different mechanism that reflects molecular composition of the tastant.

Both gustation and olfactory has the same types of receptors. The difference of both are the human being can taste sweet bitter and salty food whereas in nose it transmit signals to olfactory bulb to generate response.

Ageusia is a loss of taste function of the tongue where the individual cannot detect the sweetness, bitter, sourness, saltiness and umami. The main cause of this are trauma and in. Neurological damage, problems with endocrine system such as cushing syndrome, hyperthyroidism etc, other local damage and inflammation of taste buds or nervous system can give rise to this condition.

Anosmia is a condition in which the individual cannot detect the smell. It is otherwise known as smell blindness. Itmay be due to inflammation in nasal mucous membranes, destruction of one temporal lobe, or blockage of nasal passages. One of the symptoms of Anosmia is that they notice a change in way a thing smell.