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Symposium: The Multisensory Quartet - Smell, Taste, Chemesthesis, and Flavor.
Multiple Paper Presentation
Bruce P. Halpern
Psychology and Neurobiology and Behavior, Cornell University
Abstract ID Number: 41
Symposium Overview
The 'chemical senses' are inherently multisensory. Human smelling can involve the main olfactory system (cranial nerve I) and the trigeminal system (cranial nerve V), with the latter innervating the cornea and membranes of the oral and nasal cavities. Only olfactory receptor neurons directly reach the olfactory bulb, but substantial centrifugal input is already present. The taste system of the oral cavity uses cranial nerves VII, IX, and X, responding to chemical, thermal and mechanical stimulation. All three taste nerves synapse in the hindbrain, together with heavy trigeminal input. Chemesthesis, aka common chemical sense, is a somatosensory component that includes responses to chemicals of trigeminal, glossopharyngeal, vagal, and spinal nerve afferents. Flavor, human responses to foods, emerges from all of the above plus bone-conducted sound as food is chewed, and the appearance of foods before they are ingested. Flavor-related neural responses occur in primate cerebral cortical areas.
Papers in this Symposium:
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