PSYC 106 Lecture 12: Vestibular and Somatosensation
Document Summary
Hunger, thirst fatigue, sexual arousal, itch, feelings of acceptance, sensual touch, muscle soreness, temperature, muscle tension, vagus nerve. Three fluid-filled semicircular canals in each inner ear (for the three planes!) As head turns, the otoliths in the fluid bend cilia on hair cells in these structures ( hair cells get depolarized) Hair cells project to vestibular nerve cells whose axons project (as part of the 8th cranial nerve) to the vestibular nucleus in the brain stem. The 8th cranial nerve also contains axons from the auditory nerve cells, which receive from the hair cells on the basilar membrane and project to the cochlear nucleus in the brain stem. Vestibular occular reflex: the vestibular system sends a signal to your eyes, if you turn your head, to rotate your eyes in the opposite direction, so that it maintains stability of the eye. Sometimes you need to suppress your vestibular occular reflex.
