CAS PS 222 Lecture Notes - Lecture 9: Somatosensory System, Mechanoreceptor, Nociception
27 Apr 2018
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Touch: The Body Senses April 19
There are soe thigs like the Reeptie fields i touh that e still do’t ko uh aout.
Think about the step to perceptual processing: the physical stimulus, the transduction of how
and what, what happens to the neural signal and how it is processed.
Tactile Perception: Information about things that we touch in the world. We gain information
about things that we touch based on how our skin moves and transforms in response to that
physical stimulus.
The sense organ is Skin. Movements of the skin and body gives us information.
- Skin Deformation: Pressing into the arm, the skin changes shape with response to the
touch.
- Muscle stretch/joint angle: How does your skin stretch over your muscles and how your
muscle itself stretches in response to the interaction with different objects.
- Yields object texture and shape: The above two, gives us information about the physical
objects texture and shape.
Nociception: Refers to our ability to sense physical damage to our bodies. It is the pain sense.
- Physical damage (pain): When something hurts.
Thermoreception: Our ability to sense whether something is cold or hot.
- Temperature
Proprioception: Our ability to balance and understand the position of our body relative to space.
- Balance and body position
Tactile Perception:
- The receptor cells that allow us to perceive tactile perceptions are called
mechanoreceptors.
- 4 main types of mechanoreceptors:
- They are characterized by 2 main things: How fast they adapt to the presence of
stimulation and the depth of the ending of the mechanoreceptor.
- A burst of activity and then a maintained activity: Slow adapting mechanoreceptor
- Fast adapting: Burst of activity during stimulus onset then there is no activity and then
when the stimulus is removed there is again a burst of activity.
- Type 1: very close to the skin surface (the ending) more densely packed, smaller RF and
better resolution.
- Type 2: deeper into the skin, less dense and larger RFs and lower spatial resolution.
find more resources at oneclass.com
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Document Summary
There are so(cid:373)e thi(cid:374)gs like the re(cid:272)epti(cid:448)e fields i(cid:374) tou(cid:272)h that (cid:449)e still do(cid:374)"t k(cid:374)o(cid:449) (cid:373)u(cid:272)h a(cid:271)out. Think about the step to perceptual processing: the physical stimulus, the transduction of how and what, what happens to the neural signal and how it is processed. Tactile perception: information about things that we touch in the world. We gain information about things that we touch based on how our skin moves and transforms in response to that physical stimulus. Movements of the skin and body gives us information. Skin deformation: pressing into the arm, the skin changes shape with response to the touch. Muscle stretch/joint angle: how does your skin stretch over your muscles and how your muscle itself stretches in response to the interaction with different objects. Yields object texture and shape: the above two, gives us information about the physical objects texture and shape. Nociception: refers to our ability to sense physical damage to our bodies.
