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PSYC211 > The somatosensory system > Flashcards

The somatosensory system Flashcards

1
Q

What is the purpose of the somatosensory system?

A
  • provides information about touch, pressure, temperature and pain
  • concerns sensations on the surface of the skin and inside the body
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2
Q

What are the three interacting somatosensory systems?

A
  • Exteroceptive system
  • Interoceptive system
  • Proprioceptive system
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3
Q

What is the purpose of the extereoceptive system?

A
  • cutaneous senses
  • responds to stimuli applied to the skin
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4
Q

What sensations are associated with the extereoceptive system?

A
  • touch
  • temperature
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5
Q

What is the purpose of the interoceptive system?

A
  • provides information about conditions within the body
  • responsible for the efficient regulation of the internal milieu of the body
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6
Q

What senses are associated with each division of the somatosensory system?

A
  • extereoceptive: cutaneous senses
  • interoceptive: organic senses
  • Proprioceptive: kinesthesia
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7
Q

What sensations are associated with the interoceptive system?

A
  • heart rate
  • breathing
  • hunger
  • bladder
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8
Q

What is the purpose of the proprioceptive system?

A
  • monitors information about the position of the body, its posture and its movements
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9
Q

How does the proprioceptive system obtain its information?

A
  • through the tension of muscles in the body
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10
Q

How are the cutaneous sensations sensed?

A
  • through sensory neurons that will be dedicated specifically to one sensation
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11
Q

What are the stimuli that can be encoded by the cutaneous senses?

A
  • pressure
  • vibration
  • temperature
  • pain
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12
Q

What causes the sensation of pressure/touch?

A

mechanical deformation fo the skin

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13
Q

What causes the sensation of vibration?

A

moving fingers across a rough surface

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14
Q

What causes the sensation of temperature?

A

objects that heat or cool the skin

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15
Q

What causes the sensation of pain?

A

Many elements, but mostly tissue damage

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16
Q

What are the three layers of the skin? Go from outside to inside.

A

1) epidermis
2) dermis
3) hypodermis

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17
Q

What are the different types of sensory neurons that are found in the skin?

A
  • Merkel’s disks
  • Ruffini corpuscules
  • Free nerve endings
  • Pacinian corpuscules
  • Meissner’s corpuscules
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18
Q

What is the particularity of meissner’s corpuscules?

A

They are only found in glabrous skin

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19
Q

How is the epidermis sustained in oxygen?

A
  • through direct contact with the air
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20
Q

Is the perception of temperature localized?

A

No

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21
Q

What are the different types of thermal receptors?

A
  • respond to warmth
  • respond to coolness
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22
Q

What can activate the thermal receptors?

A

temperature OR liguands

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23
Q

What type of cutaneous sensory neurons are thermal receptors?

A

free nerve endings

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24
Q

Where are situated Merkel’s disks?

A

on the epidermis

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25
Q

What is the neuronal structure of Merkel’s disks?

A

Ion receptors
Activated by strong touch and pressure

26
Q

What do merkel’s disks sense?

A

Local skin intendation (that is strong)

27
Q

What senses are Ruffini corpuscules associated to?

A

Kinesthetic senses (kinesthesia, proprioceptive system)

28
Q

What are Ruffini corpuscules sensitive to?

A

Stretch

29
Q

What information do ruffini corpuscules provide?

A
  • finger position
  • movement
30
Q

What are pacinian corpuscules sensitive to?

A

Skin vibrations

31
Q

Where are pacinian corpuscules situated?

A

hypodermis

32
Q

What are meissner’s corpuscules sensitive to?

A

very light touch/pressure

33
Q

What do Meissner’s corpuscules detect?

A
  • very light touch
  • Localized edge contour
34
Q

What are free nerve endings sensitive to?

A
  • temperature
  • pain
35
Q

What type of information do free nerve endings provide?

A
  • diffuse/non localized sensation
  • slow transfer information
36
Q

What type of sensory neurons allow to read Braille?

A

Meissners corpuscules

37
Q

What is the thermal grid illusion?

A
  • alternance of two slightly warm and slightly cold rods
  • brain is unable to process such close opposing signals
  • sensation of burning heat
38
Q

What are high-threshold mechanoreceptors?

A
  • pressure receptor cells
  • free nerve endings that respond to intense pressure
  • touch-sensitive ion channels
39
Q

What are the different stimuli that pain receptors may respond to?

A
  • intense pressure
  • extreme heat
  • the presence of molecules that should not be there
40
Q

How do the axons from skin, muscle and internal organs enter the CNS?

A
  • via spinal nerves
41
Q

What are the two main pathways that that the spinal nerves follow to reach the CNS?

A

1) Spinothalamic tract
2) dorsal column

42
Q

What is the general name of the pain-specialized receptors?

A

Nocireceptors

43
Q

Where do the dorsal and spinothalamic tract meet?

A

in the midbrain

44
Q

Where do the conjoined dorsal and spinathalamic tract synapse?

A

in the thalamus

45
Q

From the thalamus, where does the somatosensory information go?

A

Primary somatosensory cortex in the parietal lobe

46
Q

What follows from damage in an area of the somatosensory cortex?

A

loss of sensitivity in the associated part of the body

47
Q

What type of information travels through the spinothalamic tract?

A
  • low spatial resolution
  • crude touch, pain, temperature
48
Q

What is the path of the information that travels through the spinothalamic tract?

A
  • first synapse in the spinal chord
  • information crosses over the midline in the spinal chord
  • information asciends controlaterally to the thalamus
49
Q

How does information from the skin, muscles and internal organs enter the CNS?

A
  • through spinal nerves
50
Q

What type of information travels through the dorsal column?

A
  • highly localized information
  • relates to fine touch
  • relates to kinesthesia
51
Q

How does the informaiton ascend through the spinothalamic tract?

A
  • controlterally
52
Q

How does the information ascend through the dorsal tract?

A
  • ipsilaterally
53
Q

What is the path of the information that travels through the dorsal tract?

A
  • ascends ipsilaterally
  • synapses first in the medulla
  • information crosses over to the contralateral side in the medulla
  • ascends to the thalamus
54
Q

What is chronic pain most frequently associated with?

A
  • a lesion in the somatosensory cortex
55
Q

What is phantom limb pain?

A
  • Pain sensation that occurs after a limb has been amputated
  • the missing limb is reported to still exist and to hurt
56
Q

What could explain phatom limb pain?

A
  • confusion in the somatosensory cortices (primary and association)
  • the neurons that have been cut try to be useful to the system in any way possible, so they send nonsense signals that they infer from getting other sensory axons to synapse on them
  • The brain therefore gets nonsense signals, that it has difficulty interpreting, and interprets it as pain
57
Q

What is tactile agnosia?

A
  • incapacity to verbally identify an object by touch alone
  • often: they can draw the object that they touch
58
Q

What causes tactile agnosia?

A

Lesion in the somatosensory association cortex

59
Q

how is the somatosensory cortex organized?

A

It is a somatotopic map: every area is associated with a part of the body

60
Q

What is the difference between the dorsal and spinothalamic tract

A
  • Spinathalamic synapses directly in the spinal chord and ascends to the brain controlaterally
  • dorsal ascends ipsilaterally and crosses over in the medulla
61
Q

Where do the spinothalamic and dorsal tracts bundle?

A

in the midbrain

PSYC211 (21 decks)

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