PSY290H5 Chapter Notes -Sensory Neuron, Electroreception, Vomeronasal Organ
Document Summary
Chapter eight: general principles of sensory processing, touch and pain. All animals have specialized body parts that are particularly sensitive to some forms of energy. Sensory receptor organs: an organ (such as the eye or ear) specialized to receive particular stimuli (light reaching eye, sound waves reaching ear) Receptor cells within the organs detect particular kinds of stimuli and convert them into language of the nervous system: electrical signals. Eventually info from sensory receptors organs enters the brain as a series of action potentials travelling along millions of axons and our brains make sense of it all. Adequate stimulus: type of stimulus for which a given sensory organ is particularly adapted. Today we know the messages for diff senses-- such as seeing, hearing etc, all use the same type of energy: action potentials. Labeled lines: the concept that each nerve input to the brain reports only a particular type of info (diff nerve tracts) (ex pressing finger on eyelid)
