Description:Sensory systems allow an organism to get information from the external world and transform it into an internal representation. We will learn general principles of sensory systems’ organization and the most recent advances about the mammalian chemical senses. Students will be involved in laboratory experiments with electrophysiological recordings of odor and pheromone responses and in journal clubs discussing the most recently published papers.
The course covers the following topics:
- Anatomical organization of the olfactory, vomeronasal and taste systems.
- Olfactory, vomeronasal, taste receptors, their ligands and transduction mechanisms.
- The family of TMEM16 ion channels and their roles in chemical senses.
- Chemesthesis and TRP ion channels.
- From the periphery to the cortex.
- How SARS-CoV-2 infects the chemical senses.