Olfaction and Taste Processing in Autism

Receptor cell regeneration and connectivity in olfaction and taste.

The capacity of adult mammalian gustatory and olfactory receptor cells to regenerate and make synaptic reconnections provides examples that may be useful in initiating replacement of other kinds of sensory receptor cells. The sensory code for taste quality may not be degraded by taste receptor cell turnover because axons probably recouple to the appropriate type of new receptor cell by axon-rec...

The Physics and Biology of Olfaction and Taste

Traditionally, the chemical senses include olfaction and gustation: olfaction (smell) reports on gaseous substances carried by air over long distances, and gustation (taste) provides information about food material already in the mouth. However, in recent times behavioral, physiological, histological, and molecular studies have increased our understanding of vertebrate chemoreception, and four ...

The 15th International Symposium on Olfaction and Taste.

A Mechanistic Link between Olfaction and Autism Spectrum Disorder

Internal action models (IAMs) are brain templates for sensory-motor coordination underlying diverse behaviors. An emerging theory suggests that impaired IAMs are a common theme in autism spectrum disorder (ASD). However, whether impaired IAMs occur across sensory systems and how they relate to the major phenotype of ASD, namely impaired social communication, remains unclear. Olfaction relies on...

Taste processing in Drosophila larvae

The sense of taste allows animals to detect chemical substances in their environment to initiate appropriate behaviors: to find food or a mate, to avoid hostile environments and predators. Drosophila larvae are a promising model organism to study gustation. Their simple nervous system triggers stereotypic behavioral responses, and the coding of taste can be studied by genetic tools at the singl...