Audition, Mechanical

Senses, and Chemical

Senses
SP212
Physical dimensions of sound

 Amplitude
 Amplitudeis the intensity of
the soundwave (physical)
 Frequency
 Frequencyis the number of
compressions per second
 Measured in hertz (Hz)
Psychological dimensions of sound

 Loudness
 Loudness is inherently psychological in nature
 Two people talking at the same amplitude (loudness) can sound very different
 People who talk faster are normally perceived to be louder
 Pitch
 Pitch is the psychological perception of frequency
 Sound waves higher in frequency tend to sound more high-pitched
 Children are able to hear higher frequencies than adults
Structures of the ear

 The human ear can be split into three general categories:

1. Outer ear
2. Middle ear
3. Inner ear
Outer ear

 The part that we see most often and

think about, called the pinna
 Made out of flesh and cartilage
 Helps to divert and reflect sound
waves into the ear canal
Middle Ear

 Largely unseen, located within the

skull
 Consists of three parts:
1. Tympanic membrane (ear drum)
2. Three tiny bones
1. Hammer
2. Anvil
3. Stirrup
3. Oval window
Inner Ear

 Contains a snail-shaped structure called the cochlea (Latin for ‘snail’)

 Filled with fluid, that is used to conduct vibrations
 Auditory receptors (hair cells) lie between the cochlea and tectorial membrane
 Vibrating fluid in the cochlea hits the tectorial membrane, which stimulates the
hair cells
 Hair cells then stimulate the auditory nerve, sending signals to the brain, which
interprets it as sound
Pitch Perception

 Two theories as to how humans can detect pitch:

1. Place theory
2. Frequency theory
Place Theory

 According to this theory, each frequency of sound activates only one place on the
basilar membrane, and we perceive pitch depending on which part of the basilar
membrane is activated
 E.g. like individual strings on a guitar – each string that’s activated only produces a
certain pitch or note
 Criticism:
1. The different parts of the basilar membrane are too close together for any part to
resonate individually without affecting the others
Frequency theory

 Suggests that the basilar membrane vibrates in sync with a sound

 A sound with very high pitch causes the basilar membrane to vibrate at the same exact
speed, replicating that pitch
 E.g. a 50Hz sound would cause 50 vibrations, and cause 50 action potentials
 Criticism:
 Can action potentials fire that rapidly? What about the refractory period of the cells?
 Maximum of 1000Hz sound limit – but humans can hear much higher than that
Modern Theory

 Combination of both frequency theories and place theories

 At low frequency (up to 100Hz, or below C in musical notes)
 Basilar membrane vibrates in sync with the sound waves (frequency theory)
 Soft sounds activate less fewer neurons (place theory)
 At higher frequency
 Follow’s the volley principle
 While one single cell might not be able to fire fast enough to replicate higher
frequencies, multiple cells firing one after another can
When you’re unable to detect pitch

 Up to 4% of people have amusia (tone-deafness)

 They can still detect tones (can still enjoy music)
 Unable to recognize tones that are off-key (so they don’t know that they are off-
key)
 Linked to genetics
The Auditory Cortex

 Information from the ears eventually reach the primary auditory cortex in the
brain
 Auditory system has a pathway sensitive to the “what” (anterior temporal cortex)
and another sensitive to the “where” (posterior temporal cortex)
 Superior temporal cortex is important for the detection of visual motion and
auditory motion
 Damage to this region of the brain results in people being able to hear, but unable to
locate where the sound is from
Hearing loss

 Two categories of hearing impairment:

1. Conductive deafness
2. Nerve deafness
Conductive deafness
 Originates from the issues within the middle ear
 Possible issues:
1. Diseases
2. Infections
3. Tumours
 Stops the middle ear from transmitting sound waves properly to the cochlea
 Sometimes temporary (infections), and can be treated with surgery or hearing aids
 People with conductive deafness can still hear their own voice (our own voices are conducted
through the bones of the skull to the cochlea)
Nerve deafness
 Caused by issues within the inner ear
 Results from damage to:
1. Cochlea
2. Hair cells
3. Auditory nerve
 Can occur in any degree, and typically cannot be compensated with hearing aids
Nerve Deafness

 Causes:
1. Exposure of mother to toxins or rubella during pregnancy
2. Inadequate oxygen to the brain during birth
3. Deficient activity of the thyroid gland
4. Diseases (meningitis, multiple sclerosis)
5. Childhood reactions to certain drugs
6. Repeated exposure to loud noises
Sound localisation – how do you
know where a sound came
from?
 Brain actively compares responses obtained from both ears
 Possible cues that help the brain determine location:
1. Difference in intensity between the ears
2. Difference in time of arrival at the two ears
 Even at just 600 microseconds difference
3. Phase difference
 If a sound comes from the side, the waves are out of
phase with each other
Mechanical Senses: Vestibular Sensation

Class activity
Mechanical Senses: Vestibular Sensation

 Vestibular sensation: awareness of body balance and movement

 When you move your head, the vestibular organ next to the cochlea (in your ears)
monitors movements and directs your eyes to compensate
 When your friend shakes the notes, your vestibular organ cannot compensate fast
enough, so you cannot read the notes anymore
 Vestibular organ:
1. Three semicircular canals filled with a jelly-like substance and lined with hair cells
2. When your head moves, the substance presses against the hair cells, which sends
signals to your brain to compensate
Mechanical Senses: Somatosensation

 Different kinds of somatosensation:

1. Discriminative touch
2. Deep pressure
3. Cold
4. Warmth
5. Pain
6. Itch
7. Tickle
8. Position and movement of joints
Mechanical Senses: Somatosensation

Somatosensory receptors, locations, and functions

Receptors
Free nerve ending
Hair-follicle receptors
Meissner’s corpuscles
Pacinian corpuscles
Merkel’s disks
Ruffini endings
Krause end bulbs
Location Responds to:
Near base of hairs and elsewhere in Pain, warmth, cold
skin
Hair-covered skin Movement of hairs
Hairless areas Sudden displacement of skin, low
frequency vibration (flutter)
Both hairy and hairless skin Sudden displacement of skin, high
frequency vibration
Both hairy and hairless skin Tangential forces across skin
Both hairy and hairless skin Stretch of skin
Mostly or entirely in hairless areas Uncertain
Touch input and the Central Nervous
System
 Information from touch receptors in the head enters the CNS through the cranial nerves (nerves
on the head)
 Information from below the head enters the spinal cord and goes to the brain through the 31
spinal nerves
 8 cervical nerves
 12 thoracic nerves
 5 lumbar nerves
 5 sacral nerves
 1 coccygeal nerve
 Sensory information traveling through the spinal cord have their own pathways – touch pathway
is separated from the pain pathway
 Pain pathway itself separates between sharp pain, slow burning pain, and painfully cold feelings
Pain “Pain is a very good teacher”
Pain

 Prefrontal cortex processes pain differently from other stimulus

 While the prefrontal cortex tends to only respond briefly to new stimulus, it continues
to process pain stimulus as long as the pain lasts
 Why do you think it does this?
Pain stimuli and pain pathways

 Pain receptors respond to pain stimulus, even acid and heat

 Capsaicin, a chemical found in chillis, stimulates pain receptors
 Axons carrying pain information have no myelin sheaths
 Thicker axons carry sharp pain
 Thinner ones carry dull pain
 Non-myelinated axons carry pain slower
 Brain responds to pain faster than other stimulus, even though it’s carried slower
Ways of relieving pain

 Opioids and endorphins

 Placebos
 Cannabinoids and Capsaicin
 Electrical stimulation of the nervous system
 Gate control theory of pain
Opioids and endorphins

 Opioid mechanisms
 Opiates bind o receptors foind in the spinal cord and periaqueductal gray area of the
midbrain
 Endorphins
 A neurotransmitter that decreases pain
 Also released during sex, or listening to music, or doing something you enjoy
Placebos
 Placebos are drugs or other procedures that actually have no effects
 The power in a placebo is in expectation
 Some doctors will prescribe “painkillers” to patients that are actually just vitamin pills
 Patients who take these pills believe that it will help them take away the pain, and actually report less
pain as a result
 Brain scans of patients who receive placebos also show decrease in activity related to pain – mind over
matter debate?
 Ethics
 Is it right to lie to patients using placebos?
 Where do we draw the line?
Cannabinoids and Capsaicin

 Chemicals related to cannabis (marijuana) can also help relieve pain

 Medical cannabis
 Cannabis mainly act on the periphery of the body rather than the central nervous
system
 Capsaicin also can be used to reduce pain
 Reduces pain by forcing cells to release P substance (chemicals linked to pain)
 Cells release P substance faster than they can make it – making cells unable to conduct
P substances for a while
 High doses of capsaicin can also damage pain receptors – why people who are used to
eating spicy food no longer feel it’s spicy
Electrical stimulation of the nervous
system
 Direct stimulation in or near the pain pathways in the spinal cord or in the
thalamus
 Most of the time, no long-lasting benefits of pain relief – the moment the
stimulation stops, the pain comes back
Gate Control theory of pain

 The gate control theory theorizes that stimulus goes through “gates” in the
conscious brain
 When we feel pain, it’s because the brain is conscious of it
 One way to decrease pain would be to focus on other things, causing other
stimulus to go through the “gate” in the brain, and keeping pain stimulus out
 This is why sometimes you the best way to forget pain is to distract yourself from it
 This is also why doctors sometimes tell patients to cough when taking an injection –
focusing on the cough reduces the pain
Sensitization of pain

 Sometimes the body increases sensitivity to pain

 Sunburns feel more tender and painful
 Does this through the release of histamine, nerve growth factor, and other
chemicals that help to repair damage, but also makes the body more sensitive to
pain
 Anti-inflammatory drugs (ibuprofen) helps reduce the pain by reducing the
release of chemicals from damaged tissues
 Suffering from prolonged pain can also make certain cells more ‘sensitive’ to
pain, and make them experience pain easier even after recovery
Itch

 We actually don’t know what causes itchiness

 Two kinds of itch
1. Mild tissue damage
2. Contact with certain plants or stimulus
 One particular spinal cord pathway conveys itch sensations
 Useful because it directs your attention to particular area that might be in position
that’s uncomfortable, but not yet dangerous (painful)
 Pain and itch are almost opposites – you scratch and itch and feel better because it
hurts
Chemical senses

 Several types of chemical senses

1. Taste
2. Olfaction (smell)
3. Pheromones
4. Synesthesia
Taste
 Taste and smell are interconnected
 If you have a cold, you can’t really taste food
 Stimulation of the taste buds on the
tongue produces taste
 Mammalian taste buds are located on the
papillae on the surface of the tongue
 Most papillae are on the edges of the
tongue
 The idea of ‘specific’ areas of the tongue
for a specific taste is actually false
Types of taste receptors

 Traditionally belief states that there are four kinds of tastes

1. Sweet
2. Sour
3. Salty
4. Bitter
 Some tastes don’t actually qualify as any of them
 A ‘fifth’ taste - umami
 Adaptation: you can make other things taste less intense by first “fatiguing” your
taste buds
 If you’re going to drink a sour medicine, first drinking something less sour like lemon
juice can help make the medicine less sour
Mechanisms of taste receptors

 Saltiness receptor is simple: sodium in salt causes an action potential, resulting in

taste
 Sweetness, bitterness, and umami are similar chemically – how does the tongue
and brain differentiate them?
 Receptors in the tongue that respond to sweetness and umami send signals to the brain
 Brain compares the signals arriving, determining which signal is stronger, and we taste
that particular taste
 Bitter taste contains chemicals that are mostly known to be toxic to some degree – why
is this the case?
Taste coding in the brain

 Information from the front 2/3 of the tongue is sent to the brain through the facial
nerve (7th cranial nerve)
 Taste from the back 1/3 of the tongue is sent through the 9th and 10th cranial nerves
 Taste nerves link to the nucleus of the tractus solitarius (NTS), in the medulla
 From Medulla > pons > lateral hypothalamus > amygdala > ventral-posterior
hypothalamus > somatosensory cortex + insula (primary taste cortex)
Individual differences in taste

 Pregnant women develop higher sensitivity to

taste – why?
Supertasters Tasters Nontasters
25 papillae/ ¼ 17 papillae/ ¼ 10 papillae/ ¼
inch inch inch
More common in Most of the More common in
Asians (China, world’s White Europeans
Japan) population and Americans in
general
Olfaction

Sense of smell is a response to chemicals that Critical to survivability

contact membranes in the nose
Rats and mice show an unlearned avoidance to
the smell of cats, foxes, and other predators
Helps to find food and mates
• Human experiments on smell found that we
like people who smell similar to us, but not
too similar
Olfactory Receptors

 Olfactory cells line the epithelium at the rear of the nasal air canals
 Humans have a few hundred olfactory receptors that react to different proteins
 Rats have about a thousand different types
 We have more different types of olfactory than visual receptors because there are
a lot more chemicals that are not on a scale
Messages to the brain

 Smell stimulates the olfactory nerve > axon carries impulses to olfactory bulb
 Olfactory receptors are vulnerable to damage because it is exposed to air
 New ones are made every month or so to replace them
Individual differences in olfaction

 Women seem to pay more attention to smells than males

 Young women gradually become more attentive to a particular smell after a
prolonged time, becoming potentially more than 100x more sensitive to a
particular smell over time

Question: why does it seem to be more important to females than males?

Pheromones

 Vomeronasal organ (VNO) is a set of receptors located near the olfactory

receptors, but are different
 VNO’s receptors react to pheromones, and keep reacting at the same intensity
even after prolonged exposure
 VNO is tiny and has no receptors in adult humans
 Left behind by evolution?
 Pheromones can unconsciously affect behavior if they come into contact with
human skin
 Women exposed to men’s sweat release cortisol (stress hormone)
 Women with an intimate relationship with a man tend to have more regular periods
Synesthesia

 Definition: experience of one sense in response to stimulation of a different sense

 “The taste of beef is dark blue”
 A rare condition where people can literally taste colours, see colours in numbers,
etc
 1 in 500 people is synesthetic
 Possibly because some axons from one cortical area have branches in another cortical
area