PSY290H5 Chapter Notes - Chapter 5: Lamellar Corpuscle, Stimulus Modality, Spinal Nerve
Document Summary
Part i: sensory processing and the somatosensory system. All animals have sensory organs containing receptor cells that sense some forms of energy (called stimuli) but not others. Receptor cell: a specialized cell that responds to a particular energy or substance in the internal or external environment and converts this energy into a change in the electrical potential across its membrane. Stimulus: a physical event that triggers a sensory response. Receptor cells act as filters, ignoring the environmental background, and converting the key stimuli into the language of the nervous system: electrical signals. Different kinds of energy (light, sound, etc. ) need different sensory organs to convert them into neural activity. Labeled lines: the concept that each nerve input to the brain reports only a particular type of information. Receptor cells convert sensory signals into electrical activity. The structure of a receptor cell determines the particular kind of energy or chemical to which it will respond.
