Symposium Overview

As chemosensory scientists, we frequently discuss taste and smell in isolation from our other faculties (frequently we discuss them even in isolation from each other). We study chemosensation for its own sake, and we study it without heed to other sensory systems; we characterize the system underlying olfaction, for instance, simply so that we can explain how olfaction works, and we explain taste function without thinking about vision or audition. The author of this brief essay is no exception to this general strategy (although exceptions do exist), and in general it is a good and useful one. It does, however, leave us in the relative dark concerning a large number of phenomena in which taste and smell are players: as the phylogenetically oldest input system, chemosensation is involved in a wide array of phenomena; taste and smell play roles in mating-related behaviors, for instance, and are inextricably linked to the systems controlling pain and addiction. Furthermore, taste interacts with multiple other sensory systems, again for the purposes of contributing to multiple skills that facilitate survival and reproduction. Consideration of such topics can broaden a chemosensory scientist’s understanding of her/his own domain and serve as a springboard for interactions between chemosensory researchers and those from other subfields of neuroscience.