Behavioral Neuroscience - Taste

Flashcards covering key vocabulary and concepts related to the lecture on behavioral neuroscience and taste.

Five Basic Tastes

Salt, sour, sweet, bitter, umami.

Taste Buds

Microscopic structures located on papillae of the tongue that contain taste cells.

Taste Cells

Cells that contain ion channels and G-protein-coupled receptors that interact with taste stimuli.

G-protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs)

Receptors that interact with bitter, sweet, and umami substances to initiate intracellular signaling.

Cranial Nerves for Taste

VII (facial nerve), IX (glossopharyngeal nerve), and X (vagus nerve) carry taste information to the brain.

Broadly-tuned cells

Cells in the taste pathway that respond to a number of different taste stimuli.

Nucleus of the solitary tract

Brainstem nucleus involved in taste processing.

Ventral posterior medial nucleus

Thalamic structure that processes taste information before sending it to the cortex.

Gustatory Cortex

Cortical area involved in processing taste information located in the insula.

Umami taste

Savory taste primarily associated with amino acids like glutamate.

Depolarization in Taste Cells

Change in membrane potential of taste cells leading to neurotransmitter release when stimulated.

Selectivity in Cranial Nerves

Some taste cells are selective for specific tastes, while others are broadly-tuned.

Population Coding

Neural coding mechanism where the responses from a population of taste cells are integrated to improve taste discrimination.

Specific Satiety

Decreased neural response in the orbitofrontal cortex to a specific taste as satiety occurs.

Taste-odor integration

The interaction between taste and olfactory sensory information in the insula and orbitofrontal cortex.