Search results for "Sensory Functions"
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The 40-Year Mystery of Insect Odorant-Binding Proteins
2021
International audience; The survival of insects depends on their ability to detect molecules present in their environment. Odorant-binding proteins (OBPs) form a family of proteins involved in chemoreception. While OBPs were initially found in olfactory appendages, recently these proteins were discovered in other chemosensory and non-chemosensory organs. OBPs can bind, solubilize and transport hydrophobic stimuli to chemoreceptors across the aqueous sensilla lymph. In addition to this broadly accepted “transporter role”, OBPs can also buffer sudden changes in odorant levels and are involved in hygro-reception. The physiological roles of OBPs expressed in other body tissues, such as mouthpar…
Cartesian Psychology – Could There Be One?
2008
The chapter examines what it would mean to talk about “psychology” in Descartes’ terms and argues that within the Cartesian framework we cannot really formulate the questions that are posed by contemporary psychologists. This results from the fact that psychological topics can be found on all three levels of Cartesian science: in metaphysics, in physics and finally in the applied sciences, such as medicine and morals. The aim is to show that the sensory and vegetative functions are often taken together by Descartes. Therefore, the Cartesian system does not recognize any principal difference between sensory functions, such as vision, and vegetative functions, such as digestion. Humans can be…