Psychology 454: Behavioral Neuroscience - Smell

These flashcards cover key concepts related to olfactory neuroscience from the lecture notes.

Olfactory epithelium

A tissue located at the roof of the nasal cavity containing olfactory receptor cells that detect odorants.

Olfactory receptor cells

Specialized neurons that detect odorants and are responsible for the sense of smell.

Odorants

Substances that produce a smell, detectable by the olfactory system.

Anosmia

The loss or absence of the sense of smell, often resulting from damage to the olfactory nerve.

Olfactory bulb

A brain structure that processes information about odors, receiving input from olfactory receptor cells.

Glomeruli

Structures in the olfactory bulb where axons from olfactory receptor cells converge and synapse with mitral cells.

Broad tuning

The ability of a single olfactory receptor cell to respond to multiple different odorants.

Population coding

A process in which the combined activity of multiple olfactory receptor cells is used to encode information about odorants.

Cilia

Hair-like structures on olfactory receptor cells that interact with odorants.

Piriform cortex

A region of the brain that receives processed odor information from the olfactory bulb and is involved in odor discrimination.

Action potential

An electrical impulse that travels along the axon of a neuron, triggered by the receptor potential in the olfactory cells.

Odorant concentration coding

The ability of olfactory receptor cells and olfactory bulb neurons to encode the concentration level of odorants.

Mitral cells

Second-order neurons in the olfactory bulb that receive input from the olfactory receptor cells and send information to the brain.

Receptor proteins

Proteins on the membrane of olfactory receptor cells that bind to specific odorants to initiate signaling.

Intracellular signaling

The series of processes within a cell that translate the binding of an odorant to receptor proteins into a neuronal response.

Odorant categories

Groups of odorants that have similar characteristics, identified by specific patterns of neural activity in the piriform cortex.

Spatial and temporal coding

The mechanisms by which the olfactory system encodes information about odors through the spatial arrangement of activated neurons and the timing of their firing.