The Senses

The Senses 1
Taste (or Gustation)
 There are about 10,000 taste buds on the
tongue, clustered in papillae (those bumps
all over your tongue). The taste buds are
clusters of neuron bodies that line tiny pits in
the papillae, and look sort of like a
microscopic bunch of bananas.

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Taste Buds

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Four Basic Tastes
 Bitter - alkaloids

 Sweet - sugars

 Salt - sodium chlorids

 Sour - acids

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A Fifth Taste
 Umami or savoriness, which involves a
sensitivity to glutamate (which you may
remember as one of the neuro-transmitters).
You find it in aged cheese, tomatos,
mushrooms, meat, and soy sauce. It is best
known as monosodium glutamate, which is
used to enhance the flavor of meat.

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Response to Fats
 Recent research with mice shows that some
mice also have taste buds that respond to
fats. Apparently, it is a genetic trait, one that
may help us to understood why some people
are more attracted to fatty foods than others.

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Hagendaz Ice Cream!
 There are people that cannot taste anything.
This is technically known as ageusia.
Fortunately, it is very rare.

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Smell (Olfaction)
 Smell works much like taste: It is also a “lock
and key” sense. This time, it is a matter of
moist air being drawn over a piece of
specialized mucous membrane about the
size of a dime at the top of your nasal cavity.

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The Senses 9
Response to Some Combination
of Seven Basic Molecules
Floral
Pepperminty
Musky
Pungent (like spices)
Camphoraceous (like mothballs or muscle
liniments)
Ethereal (like dry-cleaning fluid)
Putrid (like rotten eggs)

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Smell More Sensitive than Taste
 There are roughly 40 million smell receptor
cells in humans. Dogs have us beat, paws
down, with 100 million cells. But they don't
even rate compared with rabbits, with one
billion cells
 A lack of the sense of smell in humans is
called anosmia.

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Touch (Tactile)
 Theskin actually has three types of
sensation:
 Pressure,
 Temperature,
 Pain.

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Pressure
 Pressure is a simple matter of mechanical
distortion, the bending of the dendrites of a
mechanoceptor. When bent, the stress cause the
opening of channels, the exchange of ions, and, of
course, the firing of the neuron. In some cases, the
dendrites are embedded in capsules which, when
compressed, stimulate the neuron. Plus different
neurons are sensitive to different kinds of pressure:
light touch, firm pressure, and vibration

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Temperature
 Temperature seems to be a very direct
influence of the heat or cold opening certain
ion gates. So far, we have found three of
them: One for cold, one for hot, and one for
very hot. Perhaps there are also ones for
very cold and even just plain warm.

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Sensory Neurons

The Senses 15
Vestibular Sense
 The vestibular sense tells you which way is up, how
your body is oriented in relation to up, and how your
body is moving in space. The sensations are based
on hair cells - mechanoceptors with dendrites that
resemble brushes. In the inner ear, there is a
special arrangement of three semicircular canals
around a central area. In the semicircular canals,
the motion of the fluid as you spin causes gelatinous
lumps called cupulas to bend one way or the other,
which in turn causes the hair cells to bend.

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The Senses 17
Time to Vomit
 The vestibular sense is also connected to
parts of the brain that tell you when it is time
to vomit. This is the cause of motion
sickness.

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Spinning
 Ifyou spin hard enough and then suddenly
stop, the tiny current keeps going for a little
bit, and gives you the sensation that you are
still spinning, but in the opposite direction.
Your brain may try to compensate for this,
and cause you to fall or at very least feel
dizzy.

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Hearing (Audition)
 Hearing is also a matter of hair cells! The outer ear
canal leads to the ear drum, a thin tissue stretched
across the opening. Behind the ear drum, there is a
sequence of three tiny bones that slightly amplify the
vibrations of the ear drum. They end at another thin
tissue that closes the true organ of hearing, called
the cochlea. It is actually a tube, first bent in half,
then wound up into a coil, and filled with fluid.

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The Senses 21
Vision
 Vision is different from all the other senses. It
involves receptor neurons that are sensitive
to light. Light enters through the pupil and
lens of the eye and is projected onto the back
surface of the eye called the retina. The
retina is composed of, among many other
things, receptor neurons called rods and
cones

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The Senses 23
Rods
 The rods are sensitive to a broad range of light, i.e.
they tell us about “white.” They contain what is
called visual purple (rhodopsin), a chemical that is
sensitive to light. Note that a crucial part of this
chemical is derived from vitamin A -- so eat your
carrots! The chemical breaks down when exposed
to light and releases a protein (opsin) which
eventually releases a neurotransmitter to send
messages to the brain that “there is light.” Then the
breakdown products are re-assembled back into
rhodopsin.

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Cones
 Cones are similar, but involve a chemical
called iodopsin that is sensitive to more
specific wavelengths of light, depending on
pigments associated with the chemical. One
kind of cone responds to red, one to green,
and one to blue. Again, a protein (retinene)
leads to the release of neurotransmitters, etc.

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 Rods are far more sensitive than cones. This
is why you see in “black and white” when
there isn’t much light. Nocturnal animals tend
to be color-blind, that is, they don’t have any
cones, since color is of little use to them while
high sensitivity is. Also, nocturnal animals
usually have a shiny backing to their retina
that reflects light back to the rods called a
tapetum. It is usually made up of tiny
crystals. This is why cats and other animals
reflect light from their eyes!

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Red-Green Colour Blind
 The great majority of color-blind people suffer from red-green
color blindness. This comes about because they lack either red
or green cones, so that red and green are indistinguishable.
Everything is in shades of blue and yellow. It is much more
common in men than women, occuring in about 1 in every 20
men. This is because the genes for red-green colorblindness are
on the X chromosome of the 23rd pair. Since women have two X
chromosomes, they must inherit the problem from both parents.
On the other hand, a man with red-green colorblindness will not
transmit the gene to his sons - only to his daughters (who will
probably not be color blind!).

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Blue-Yellow Colour Blind
 Some people suffer from blue-yellow color
blindness, which means that there is
something wrong with their cones for blue.
They see the world in shades of green and
red. Since the gene for this kind of color
blindness is on chromosome 7, it is equally
distributed between men and women. It is,
however, extremely rare.

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Complete Colour Blindness
 Alsovery rare is complete color blindness,
which can mean that the person only has one
kind of cone or none at all.

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The Senses 30
Sense of Touch in the Womb
• Touch refers to the reaction to pressure, temperature, and pain,
and seems to produce a generalized response.
• Sense of touch starts in the cheek and then quickly extends to
the genital area (10 weeks), palms (11 weeks), and soles of the
feet (12 weeks).
• By 17 weeks, the abdomen and buttocks are also sensitive.
• Baby may experiment with this newfound sense of touch by
stroking his or her face or sucking on a thumb, as well as
feeling other body parts and seeing how they move. By 32
weeks, nearly every part of the body is sensitive to heat, cold,
pressure, and pain.

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Sense of Taste in the Womb
 Initially taste buds appear on the tonsils, palate,
and part of the esophagus.
 By 13 to 15 weeks a fetus's taste buds already
look like a mature adult's.
 By birth, babies have a strong sense of taste.

 Newborns can discriminate between tastes and

have shown definite taste preferences.

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Sense of Smell in the Womb
 Like taste, the neurological basis for smell appears
before birth, thus there exists the possibility of
response

 Premature infants, in the last month, can smell

substance when air enters the nasal cavity.

 Studies have shown that newborns are drawn to the

odour of breast milk, although they have no previous
experience with it. Researchers think this may come
from cues they have learned in prenatal life.

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Sense of Hearing in the Womb
 Most fetus can hear sound by the fourth month.

 As early as 18 weeks, the bones of the inner ear and the nerve endings
from the brain have developed enough for baby to hear sounds such as
heartbeat and blood moving through the umbilical cord.

 By week 25, baby begins to hear mother’s voice — and father’s voices
— and may even recognize those voices as early as week 27

 A baby's heart rate often slows down when its mother is speaking;
suggesting that baby not only hears and recognizes the sound, but is
calmed by it.

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Sense of Sight in the Womb
 Vision is the last sense to develop.
 In uterus, eyelids remain closed until about the 26th
week in order for the retinas to fully develop.
 Around week 26, the eyes open and even begin to
blink.
 A baby's retinas can detect a small amount of light
filtering through a mother's tissue if she's out in the
bright sun or under strong lights.
 By week 33, the pupils of the eye can now detect
light and constrict and dilate, allowing baby to see
dim shapes

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The Senses 36
 INFANCY’S SENSORY DEVELOPMANT
Vision
A full-term newborn is equipped at birth with a functional and intact visual
apparatus. Their eyes are immature.
By about 2 to 3 months of age, most infants can focus accurate. By 8
months of age, the infant’s nervous system has matured so it is nearly as
good as normal adult acuity (nearly 20/20).
After birth, an infant can see the contrast in large black and white stripes,
and by 9 weeks of age, infant sensitivity is significantly better. Baby can
then see many subtle shadings of a face or objects in their environment.
A newborn infant’s eyes are not perfectly coordinated, and eyes may
wander, even in different directions. By 3 months of age, generally, an
infant’s eyes are well coordinated.
Newborns can follow objects, often with jerky motions.
By 3 months, infants can normally follow objects
more smoothly.

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Hearing

Ear infections are the second most common ailment in infancy

(after colds) and are caused by a variety of factors.
The most obvious sign of ear infection is persistent high-pitched
crying- often after the infant has been lying down for a while.
The human fetus can hear noises three months before birth.
However, for several hours or even days after delivery, the
neonate’s hearing might be somewhat impaired.
Hearing plays a very important role in the process by which
infants acquire language.

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Taste And Smell

Both taste (gestation) and smell (olfaction) are present at birth.

Infant taste preferences can be determined by measuring
sucking behavior .
Young infants relax and suck contentedly when provided with
sweet solutions. Infants react to sour and bitter solutions by
grimacing and breathing irregularly.
Infants respond to different odors, and the vigor of the response
corresponds to the intensity and quality of the stimulant.
When infants first detected an odor, they moved their limbs, their
breathing quickened, and their heart rate increased.

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Cutaneous Senses

Heat, cold, pressure, and pain- the four major cutaneous

sensations - are present in neonates.
Neonates are relatively insensitive to small differences in thermal
stimuli. Neonates also respond to body pressure.
As infants receive required vaccination injections during the first
few years of life, it is quite obvious that they sense pain and
discomfort .

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Neo natal Ref lexes
 When a stimulus repeatedly elicits the same response, that behaviour is
usually called a reflex.
 Neonates do some things ‘automatically’ without knowing they are
doing them also what we called a reflex
 something is put in their mouths they suck on it (sucking reflex).
 Sneezing and coughing are both reflexes that help to clear air passages.

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