Assignment 2 - answer key.pdf - Assignment #2 Chemosensory...

Assignment #2 (Chemosensory systems) BIOL372, 2021 WT2
10 points, due Sunday February 6 at 10pm
1. Many patients with otherwise mild cases of COVID-19 report that eating their
favourite food is no longer pleasurable (i.e., it lacks “flavour”). You are a home scientist
curious to know whether this is due to sort of problem in either the peripheral taste
system, the peripheral olfactory system, or both.
a) Working in your fully equipped basement laboratory, you develop a genetically
tractable laboratory mouse model of COVID-19 that recapitulate all symptoms
seen in human patients, including the lack of enthusiasm for their chow. You just
got a new microscope and so you decide to use calcium imaging of neural activity
to determine where the problem is. Which two regions of the nervous system
would you look at first, and why ( 1 pt )?