 So, a huge distinction between general senses and special senses. Special senses have almost specialized anatomical structures that relay information, that receive sensory information and deliver the information to our sensory neuron. And then the sensory neuron usually isn't the one that's actually receiving the stimuli. So, for example, light comes in, the light activates a receptor, a specialized anatomical structure that is sensitive to light. As soon as light hits it, it activates. It sends the message to the sensory neuron that then travels to the brain and says, hey, that was a really pretty thing I just looked at. Our first special sensory structure is what enables us to taste things. So, when you think of tasting things, what do you think of? Your tongue. And the sensory receptors found on your tongue are your taste buds. Taste buds are my sensory receptors. The word receptor is a weird word because it actually has multiple... multiple things that can qualify as a receptor. A taste bud? You think of the taste bud as a little bump on your tongue, but it's actually, a taste bud is embedded in that bump. So, I'm going to draw you a picture. What? I really am. I know. I never draw you pictures. This is your mouth. It's a space. If that's your mouth, I should have made this red so that you would know. This is your wet, if it's red. That's your tongue. Guess what these are? They have to be pink. Ooh, that's a pretty color. This, indeed it is so, this is a taste bud. A taste bud is made up of multiple special cells. They make up those little, like, it's really cool looking. They are cells, so they each have their own nuclei. There's multiple cells in here. They're all sensitive to different things. This is actually a space. This is called the taste pore. Since this is a space up here, this is actually what kind of tissue? Yes, of course. Just having to pick the perfect color. Maybe, oh wow, that was really hard to do. But that's a very lovely color. It's really nice. So what kind of tissue is this? What kind of tissue has taste buds embedded in it? You know it's epithelial tissue, right? Because here's a space. So your tongue is lined with epithelial tissue. If you had to take a wild guess, what kind of epithelial tissue would you expect to see on your tongue? You can push pause and think about it if you want. Is there lots of diffusion happening on your tongue? Is it really thin and thin? If it was really thin and thin, it'd be broken. So what should we have there? Since I'm talking like my tongue would be falling into a million pieces if it wasn't lined with this kind of epithelial tissue. Stratified, what? Squamous. And when you look at it, you'll totally be like, dude, that's so stratified, squamous. And it comes all the way down. And then we end up with our little basal cells, you know, just like you'd expect. And I don't even have to tell you that it's stratified, squamous epithelium. You totally could identify it. In fact, we will in a second. So the taste bud is not the somatic sensory or the sensory neuron. Did you hear that? It's not. It synapses with the somatic sensory neuron. So I'm going to draw my neuron in here. And look, does this sound familiar? So I'm going to put a little, like, I don't know, foot pad on here, a little sensory piece of information saying, hey, if you had something to say, you'd better say it to me. Who is this? Who is a nerve picking up taste? What nerves pick up taste? Oh, we'll talk about that in a second. I'll try not to get ahead of myself. Watch the magic. Here comes a piece of chocolate. Here comes a little chocolate molecule. Yummy, it goes in the taste pour. It binds with one of these cells as a chocolate molecule receptor on it, like a little protein that matches the chocolate molecule. This is so cool. And guess what happens when they connect? This little cell says, whoa, that was totally chocolate, man. It tasted really yummy. And then that's when a message gets sent to this little neuron, which says, oh, hey, we just picked up. This is a chemical that bound to the receptor, caused a chemical reaction, and now I know that that was chocolate. Or now I know I better send the message to my brain so that my brain can tell me what that was. And the message will get sent through this nerve. Does that work for you? It makes, it's beautiful. It's the chemical that binds to the receptor, and the receptor sends the message through the nerve, the afferent nerve to the brain where taste is going to be processed. Shall we talk about what is going to be processed? Like, what's the pathway? How do we get there? Definitely, but first there's one more thing I have to tell you. Guess what? We labeled this as stratified squamous epithelium. Of course we were right. That's the kind of tissue that it is. What's the name of the structure? I'm not sure for a quiz that you're cool with that. If I ask you, if I point into this, what kind of tissue is this? You better say stratified squamous epithelium. But if I say name this structure, you're going to say, dude, that's the lingual epithelium. The lingual epithelium is made from stratified squamous epithelium, but the lingual epithelium is the structure itself. And the lingual epithelium is embedded, the taste buds. The taste buds have the taste poor that allows the chemical to come in. No. Now let's look at the nerve. Now let's look at the pathway. Your tongue has to follow. Your tongue doesn't follow a pathway. The pathway, the information that your tongue is collecting, follows to get to your brain. Great idea. I'll be right back.