343 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Afferent Nerve Fiber, Stimulus Modality, Signal Transduction
Document Summary
The study of how sensory stimuli are transduced by sensory receptors and processed by the nervous system. Incoming stimulus is detected by sensory receptors (mechanoreceptors, photoreceptors, etc. ) and the message is sent as an action potential through the afferent neuron to the integrating center (brain, ganglia). The sensory system includes the sense organ, the afferent sensory neuron and the area of the brain to which these neurons project. For example the visual system includes eyes, the optic nerves and the brain areas concerned with processing visual information. A sense organ is receptor cells with accessory non-neural tissues, ex: the eye. Sensory receptors are cells that are specialized to detect incoming sensory stimuli (ex: rods and cones). The receptor proteins are on the membranes of sensory receptors (cells) specialized to detect incoming sensory signals (ex: opsin). There is human-centered classi cation of senses that we consciously use; sight, smell, hearing, taste and touch.
