Highlights from upcoming Association for
Chemoreception Sciences Annual Meeting.
Sarasota, FL - Smell and taste play essential roles
in our daily lives. The chemical senses serve as important warning
systems, alerting us to the presence of potentially harmful situations
or substances, including gas leaks, smoke, and spoiled food. Flavors
and fragrances are also important in determining what foods we eat and
the commercial products we use. The pleasures derived from eating are
mainly based on the chemical senses. Thousands of Americans experience
loss of smell or taste each year resulting from head trauma, sinus
disease, normal aging and neurological disorders, such as brain injury,
stroke and Alzheimer's disease. By providing a better understanding of
the function of chemosensory systems, scientific and biomedical
research is leading to improvements in the diagnoses and treatment of
smell and taste disorders.
Among those contributing to advancements are
members of the Association for Chemoreception Sciences (AChemS), which
will be holding its 29th annual meeting in Sarasota, FL, April 25-29,
2007. In Sarasota, scientists are presenting their latest research
findings on topics ranging from molecular biology to the clinical
diagnosis and treatment of smell and taste disorders. The 2007 meeting
is featuring presentations of new research findings, special symposia,
and workshops sponsored by AChemS, corporations, and the
National Institutes of Health. On Wednesday, April 25th, at 10:00 A.M.,
AChemS members will present an educational outreach program for local
elementary and high school students at the GWIZ Science Center.
Additionally, there will be nine, special-subject
symposia and two workshops. Throughout the five-day meeting there will
be over 500 research presentations by AChemS scientists from around
the world.
Some new findings to be presented at the meeting (click
title for additional information):
Risky Brain Response: Brain Response in People at Risk for
Alzheimer's Disease - Alzheimer's disease (AD) causes
devastating effects on memory as the victim slowly deteriorates. We
have studied people at risk for AD to identify early changes that
may signal the beginning of AD. When trying to remember, people at
risk showed different patterns of brain response than those without
genetic risk.
The Brain Automatically Adjusts to Boost Nose’s Smelling Capability
When Needed – Data from various sensory systems in numerous
species suggest fast oscillations in neural assemblies are a
mechanism to facilitate stimulus representation. We show that gamma
oscillatory power in the rat olfactory bulb is modulated by the rats
online according to task demands. This enhancement reflects a
strategy shift in the dynamics of the system.
If You Mix a Pleasant and Unpleasant Odor, What Do You Get? -
When you mix 25% pleasant odor with 75% unpleasant odor, it becomes
much less unpleasant than 100% unpleasant odor. This change, however,
may be due more to the 25% reduction in unpleasant odor than to the
addition of 25% pleasant odor. In this study we aim to elucidate the
rules underlying this interaction such that we will be able to
predict the pleasantness of odor mixtures based on the pleasantness
of their components.
Smelly Environments Make Better Noses - Exposure to an odor for
one hour per day for less than two weeks changes the brain and make
rats better smellers. The improvement comes from increasing the
number of responsive small inhibitory interneurons in the olfactory
bulb, resulting in stronger cooperativity within the olfactory bulb
when rats sniff odors.
Dousing the Flame on Your Tongue with Pharmacology - The spicy
hot sensation from peppers is due to a chemical, capsaicin, which
activates a receptor in your tongue. In studies using mice,
Scientists at Redpoint Bio Corp have used antagonists of the
receptor to abolish the aversive response to capsaicin. This is the
first demonstration of an antagonist of taste receptors being used
to eliminate an aversive taste.
Coffee or Candy? Lemon or Salt? Solving the Taste Representation
Puzzle in the Brain - Discrimination between foods is crucial
for the nutrition and survival of animals. How the information about
taste stimuli is processed by the brain is still subject of large
debate. We show for the first time that each modality is represented
by specific regions in the gustatory cortex. These regions can be
used by the brain to discriminate among taste stimuli.
Different People, Different Tastes: New Genetic Evidence - Genes
control many aspects of our lives – from the color of the eyes to
susceptibility to diseases. We identified specific variants of two
human genes involved in sensing bitterness of several molecules,
including a common sweetener, saccharin. We show that whether people
taste those molecules as bitter or not depends on which variants of
these genes they have.
Mom’s Smell Helps Organize Your Day (If You’re a Baby Rabbit) -
Most organisms show daily rhythms in a wide range of physiological
and behavioral functions. These rhythms are typically controlled by
the daily light/dark cycle. Using the rabbit, we show for the first
time that pheromonal cues from the mother can perform the same
function in still blind mammalian young.
How the Nose Tells Time - The richness of smells such as that of
a good red wine seems to develop slowly over some seconds. We have
visualized precisely timed and odor-specific patterns of neural
activity in isolated mouse olfactory bulb neurons that may provide a
mechanism for the slow changes in the perceived qualities of odors.
GABA, A Neurotransmitter Found in Taste Buds - Glutamate
decarboxylase (GAD), an enzyme that produces gamma-amino butyric
acid (GABA), is found in taste buds. The enzyme functions to produce
GABA which may interact with GABA-specific receptors, including
those in the chloride channel. The enzyme is expressed specifically
at type III cells within the taste buds. Since type III cells are
connected to the nerve cells, GABA may be a key participant in taste
signal transduction.
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