No brain no gain (NBE-E4210, week 5)
No brain no gain (NBE-E4210, week 5)
This week we learned about how the body measures different things through receptors. We briefly went through the touch receptors that sense physical touch. However, the main focus was on chemical signals, specifically taste and smell, and the function of sight.
The fact that taste and smell are closely related was no news to us. However, it was interesting to find out how both of those actually function. We didn’t know that there are so many different smell and taste sensors for different molecules. Moreover, it was good to go through the stuff that we already knew again to refresh our memories a bit.
The basic principles of sight were already known by all of us. However, none of us knew how complicated the process actually is. The mapping of visual areas and their connections by David Essen described the complexity of the system very well. We did not know that light must pass multiple layers of different cells after moving through an eye. The activation in the opsin was also new to us. It was immensely fascinating to learn how a tumor, a trauma or a seizure in the optic nerves or visual cortex could affect the vision and thus the individual’s ability to recognize people according to their faces.
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