Summary
Contents
Subject index
This core text emphasizes the underlying neural structures and functions of sensory systems (pain, olfaction, gustation, audition, vision, etc.) and presents this complex material at a level comprehensible to undergraduates as well as beginning graduate students. The text begins with a review of the central nervous system and its sensory components and includes discussions of methodological techniques and procedures used to study sensory processes.
Olfaction
Olfaction
Olfaction is practically as ancient as life itself. The chemical senses were in full operation when evolution decided to fling the vertebrates onto the beach. There were, then as now, chemicals swirling, flowing, floating, and sprouting in water, vapor, and air. These chemical molecules existed in the environment of organisms that have since become extinct. The chemicals, however, still abound in the seas and atmosphere that surrounds us today (Le Guerer, 1994).
The sensory systems of organisms, humans included, have evolved over the aeons to respond to the chemical messengers that surround us in the air we inhale and the solutions we consume (Schwenk, 1994). The olfactory system is also quite important for prey animals. It is interesting to note in passing, however, that whales ...
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