Anatomy and Physiology

Special Senses Unit

Sensation

 Conscious or subconscious awareness of

external stimuli.
Perception

 Conscious awareness and interpretation of

sensations.
Modality

 The distinct quality that makes one sensation

different from another.
Components of Sensation

1. Stimulation – Stimulus (change in the

environment that can activate certain
sensory neurons) occurs within the sensory
neuron’s receptive field (region that can
respond to stimuli).
2. Transduction – A sensory receptor or
sense organ must respond to the stimulus
and transduce (convert it to a generator
potential).
Components of Sensation Cont’d

3. Impulse Generation and Conduction – When the

generator potential reaches threshold, nerve
impulses are sent.
- First Order Neurons – Sensory neurons that send
messages to the CNS.
4. Integration – A region of the CNS must receive and
integrate the sensory nerve impulses into a
sensation. Part of the cerebral cortex is involved
with each type of sensation.
Sensory Receptors

 Respond vigorously to one type of stimulus,

but weakly or not at all to others, a quality
known as selectivity.
Classification of Receptors

 Somatic Senses – Sensations of touch,

pressure, vibration, warmth, cold, pain and
detection of body positions and movements
 Free Nerve Endings – The simplest type,
having no structural specializations;
examples include receptors for pain, temp.
itch and tickle
 Special Senses – taste, smell, vision,
hearing and equilibrium
Classification by Location

1. Exteroceptors – Located at or near the surface of

the body; provide information about the external
environment.
2. Interoceptors – Located in the blood vessels and
viscera to provide info about internal conditions
3. Proprioceptors – Located in tendons, muscles,
joints and the internal ear
- Provide info about body position, muscle tension and
the position and activity of our joints.
Classification by Stimulus

1. Mechanoreceptors – They detect

mechanical pressure or stretching; related
to touch, pressure, vibration, proprioception,
hearing, equilibrium and blood pressure.
2. Thermoceptors – They detect changes in
temperature.
Classification by Stimulus Cont’d

3. Nociceptors – They detect stimuli that

cause physical or chemical damage to
tissues.
4. Chemoreceptors – They detect chemicals
in the mouth (taste), nose (smell) and body
fluids.
Generator Potentials and Receptor
Potentials

- The electrical response of a sensory receptor

will be one of these.
- Both are graded potentials; vary in
amplitude.
- They vary with the amplitude of the stimulus.
Generator Potentials

 Generated by the senses of smell, touch,

pressure, stretching, vibration, temperature,
pain and proprioception.
Receptor Potential

 * Generated by the senses of vision,

hearing, equilibrium and taste.
 * Have short neurons that synapse with first
order sensory neurons.
 * Causes an increase or decrease in
exocytosis from synaptic vesicles.
Adaptation

 A change in sensitivity (usually a decrease)

over a long stimulation.
 EX: A hot shower feels hot a first, then feels
comfortable.
Receptors and Adaptation

 Rapidly Adapting Receptors – Associated

with pressure, smell and touch; adapt
quickly.
 Slowly Adapting Receptors – Associated
with pain, body position and chemicals in the
blood; adapt slowly.
Somatic Senses

 Arise from receptors in the skin, muscles, joints,

tendons and inner ear.
1. Cutaneous Sensations – Touch, pressure,
vibration, thermal and pain.
- receptors are in skin, mucus membranes,
mouth and anus
- some areas have many receptors, others have
few
- receptors consist of dendrites of sensory neurons
Somatic – Cutaneous Sensations
Cont’d

 Tactile Sensations – Touch, pressure,

vibration, itch and tickle.
 Touch – Results from the stimulation of
tactile receptors immediately deep to the
skin.
 Crude Touch – You know something has
touched you, but can’t determine its location,
shape, size or texture.
Somatic – Cutaneous Sensations
Cont’d

 Discrimitive Touch – The ability to

determine the exact location and other
details without seeing them.
 Pressure – These sensations result from
stimulation of deeper tissues.
– Defined as a sustained sensation that is felt over
a larger area than touch
– Receptors adapt quickly
Somatic – Cutaneous Sensations
Cont’d

 Vibration – Sensations result from rapidly

repetitive sensory signals from tactile
receptors
 Itch and Tickle – Sensations result from
stimulation of free nerve endings or by
certain chemicals
– Tickle is the only sensation that most people can’t
elicit on themselves, though why is still a mystery
Somatic – Cutaneous Sensations
Cont’d

 Thermal – Detects heat and cold; separate

receptors for each
Somatic – Cutaneous Sensations
Cont’d

 Pain – Protects the body by letting you know

when you’ve come in contact with something
damaging.
– Receptors are found in almost every body part
and respond to any type of stimulus that is strong
enough to cause tissue damage.
– Receptors are slow to adapt, so pain is going to
linger for long periods of time
Types of Pain

1. Acute (fast) – Occurs fast (within 0.1 second of

stimulation) and is not felt in deeper tissues; aka
sharp, fast and pricking pain. EX: a needle
puncture or cut from a knife
2. Chronic (slow) – Begins after a second or more
and increases in intensity; aka burning, throbbing,
aching pain. It can be excruciating
- Can be in skin, deeper tissues viscera.
Pain

 Superficial Somatic Pain – Pain that arises

in the skin
 Deep Somatic Pain – Arises from receptors
in skeletal muscles, joints, tendons and
fascia
 Visceral Pain – Comes from receptors in the
viscera (organs)
Referred Pain

 When pain is felt in the organ as well as in

some surface area far from the stimulated
area.
 The area to which the pain is referred and
the visceral organ involved are serviced by
the same area of the spinal cord.
 The heart and skin on the medial portion of
the upper arm enter the spinal cord between
T1 and T5.
Phantom Pain

 Pain experienced by patients that have had a limb

amputated.
 They experience itching, pressure, tingling and pain
as though the limb were still there.
 Possibly caused by stimulation from neurons that
used to receive signals from the appendage.
 Possibly from the brain and its sense of body
awareness.
Proprioceptive Sensations

 Awareness of body parts and movements.

 Informs us of how far muscles are
contracted, tension on tendons, and change
in the position of a joint.
 Allows us to do coordinated movements like
walking and typing.
Proprioceptive Sensations Cont’d

 Also allows you to estimated the amount of

force needed to do something (lifting a bag of
feathers or a bag of rocks).
 Receptors adapt very little if at all (you
constantly need that information).
Proprioceptive Receptors

 Muscle spindles, tendon organs and joint

kinesthetic receptors as well as hair cells of
the internal ear, which provide information
about balance.
1. Muscle Spindles

 Special groups of muscle fibers found in

regular fibers and oriented parallel to them.
– They lack actin and myosin, so they can’t contract
– They do contain two types of sensory receptors
– They monitor changes in the length of a skeletal
muscle by responding to the rate and degree of
change in length
– The information gets sent to the brain
2. Tendon Organs

 Found in the junction of tendon and muscle

 When tension increases in a tendon, a
message is sent to the brain.
 Prevents damage to tendons and muscles
due to excessive tension
 They also monitor the force of muscle
contractions.
3. Joint Kinesthetic Receptors

 Associated with the articular capsule of

synovial joints
 Responds to pressure and measures
acceleration and deceleration of joint
movement as well as joint strain.
Somatic Sensory Pathways

 Pathways from receptors to the cerebrum

involve three-neuron sets
1. First-Order Neurons

 Carry signals from the receptor to the brain

stem or spinal cord
– Face, mouth, teeth and eyes; use cranial nerves
– Back of the head, neck and body use spinal
nerves
2. Second Order Neurons

 Carry signals from the spinal cord or brain

stem to the thalamus
 Second order neurons cross over from right
to left and vice versa before ascending to the
thalamus
3. Third Order Neurons

 Run from the thalamus to the primary

somatosensory area of the cerebral cortex where
conscious perception of sensations result
 2nd order neurons synapse with 3rd order neurons in
the somatosensory area of the cerebral cortex
 Impulses along this pathway give rise to several
highly evolved and refined sensations:
1. Discrimitive Touch

 The ability to recognize the exact location of

a light touch and to make two-point
discriminations
2. Sterognosis

 The ability to recognize by feel the size,

shape and texture of an object. Examples
are reading braille or identifying (with eyes
closed) a paperclip put in your hand
3. Proprioception

 The awareness of the precise position of

body parts, and kinesthesia, the awareness
of direction of movement
4. Weight Discrimination

 The ability to assess the weight of an object.

5. Vibratory Sensations

 The ability to sense rapidly fluctuating touch.