Cutaneous Senses pt.2 Flashcards
What is the Spinothalamic Pathway
The spinothalamic pathway is a major sensory pathway in your nervous system that carries pain, temperature, and crude touch sensations from your body to your brain.
How does the spinothalamic pathway work? (how does pain travel to the brain)
- small nerve fibers synapse in spinal cord
- from the spinal cord it goes to the brain stem, then thalamus
In the spinothalamic Pathway, where does specific stimuli project to?
Pain = Anterior congulate cortex
Emotion = Insular cortex
What is the Medial Lemniscal Pathway?
medial lemniscal pathway helps detect precise touch, body awareness, and vibration by sending signals from your body to your brain
How does the Medial Lemniscal pathway work?
long fibers synapse in the medulla, goes through the medial lemniscus to the thalamus.
Where does the Medial Lemniscal pathway project to?
Primary somatosensory cortex
What is an “evoked potential method” in mesasuring somatosensorys
Where an elecrode on the scalp measures cortical activity. Different skin loci is stimulated until activity is produced (very time consuming)
What is Somatotopic organization
how different parts of the body are mapped onto the brain,
Touch is ____ pressure, Vibration is _______ pressure
constant, changing
stimulus containing _______ _______ causes abrupt change in skin tension
kinetic energy
soft touch signals go to _____ cortex, which processes _______
Insular , emotion
Explain the experiment Tiffany Field did on babies
She massaged premature babies that were in an incubator. 47% of them gained more weight, were more responsive, and slept better.
Discharged 6 days later
Edward T Hall created the 4 zones of personal space, what are they
Public distance = for public speaking (12ft)
Social distance = interactions with strangers (4-12ft)
Personal distance = interactions with friends/family (1.5-4ft)
Intimate distance = whispering, touching etc (6-18 inches)
Explain the Crusco and Wetzel study on the waitress and tipping
waitress didnt touch diners, touched their shoulders, and touched their palms.
When she touched shoulders = 18% more tips
When she touched palms = 37% more tips
What is Oxytocin?
A hormone that is released by touch and at orgasms. Involved in contractions during labour and lactation
In an experiment by JJ Gibson observers had to identify the shape of cookie cutters. One group was handed the cutters by the cutter being pushed into their palm. The other got it actively handed to them. What can we infer from this study?
Pushed into palm = 29% correct
Actively handed = 95% correct
We can infer that active touch is superior to passive touch
What did Dallenbach find about thermoperception?
Theres no correspondence between spots on the skin that responded to both cool and warm, perception is seperate for cold and warm (they dont overlap)
What are the two different types of temperature fibers?
Warm fibers = 30-48 C
Cold fibers = 20-45 C
What is “Paradoxical Cold”
When hot (45-50 degrees) produces the sensation of cold, maybe due to activation of cold fibers
What is the Psychological Zero?
physiological zero is the baseline temperature your skin perceives as neither hot nor cold — basically, what your body feels is “neutral.”
29-37 degrees celcius
