Exam 2: Somatosensory (17 and 18) Flashcards
what are the 3 sensory systems?
- somatosensory
- visceral sensory
- special sensations
somatosensory sensations
touch, nociception (pain/tissue damage), vibration, proprioception (muscle load, movement, and joint angles), pruriception (itch), and thermoception
visceral sensations
distention (gassiness), hypoxia (lack of oxygen)
special sensations
Vision
Auditory
Vestibular
Gustatory (taste)
Olfactory (smell)
primary afferent neurons
neurons that are doing the sensing in the PNS
- cell body is in the DRG and central terminal is in the dorsal horn
- The peripheral end of its axon generates an action potential in response to the stimulus its tuned to
what is the main somatosensory nerve for the head?
trigeminal nerve (CN 5)
where are the somata of the primary afferent neurons?
- in the dorsal root ganglia where their cell body is and axon is in the peripheral area for sensing
- in the cranial nerve sensory ganglia
peripheral processes
include primary afferent neurons which remain outside the CNS
- processes of dorsal root ganglion neurons are distributed to the body via spinal nerves
central processes
enter the CNS as dorsal roots which contain only sensory axons
what 2 things the spinal nerves contain?
sensory and motor axons which make them “mixed”
dermatome
innervation of specific parts of the body from the spinal nerves
- each nerve innervates its own dermatome
what makes a primary afferent neuron specific?
depends on the sensory receptors at the end of the nerve fiber and their sensitivity
what 5 groups of sense do primary afferent neurons respond to?
touch, thermoception, puriception (itch), proprioception, and nociception
touch (5)
Fine touch
Pressure
Vibration
Movement against the skin
Hair movement
proprioception (4)
Limb and trunk position
Muscle length
Movement
Muscle load
nociception (4)
–> pain and tissue damage
Heat
Cold
Chemical pain
Mechanical pain
mechanoreception
sensing mechanical force ⇒ texture, pressure, vibration, movement, stretch
- Receptors are broadly distributed through the body ⇒ many are in the skin
filterning (touch receptors)
the type of encapsulation, depth in the skin, and the sensory receptor proteins expressed by the neuron determine the stimulus
- there are many different touch receptors
density (touch receptors)
Determines how well we sense different kinds of touch
resolution
(two point discrimination) measures the distance in our sense of touch
proprioception definition
the sense of the position, movement, and load on the limbs and trunk
- mechanoreceptors but are specialized to sense muscle length, load
muscle spindles
- organs that sense muscle length
- Nerve endings are wrapped around a special intrafusal muscle fiber embedded
- Fire when a muscle is stretched ⇒ provide information required to adjust muscle contraction in response to external forces
Golgi tendon organs
- sense muscle load
- Embedded in collagen fibers of tendons
- Compressed by tension
what do Golgi tendon organs prevent?
Help prevent muscles from exerting more force than they can safely bear
- Sensitive to the force exerted by tendon
Piezo2 and how it works
receptor protein expressed in mechanoreceptor neurons
- form a trimer as a mechanically gated Na+ channel which depolarizes the nerve ending and causes the afferent nerve to fire an action potential
- the tiny hole in the middle acts as the sodium channel but only if the arms are distorted a little bit
- Sodium comes in and triggers an action potential
how does a muscle cell sense the amount of load?
the longer the depolarization and channels opened, the cell communicates that there is more load to the CNS
- The frequency of action potentials encodes the strength and duration of the stimulus
Local (spinal) reflexes
input to the brain from proprioceptors or cutaneous receptors causing reflexive response
- Direct pathway to cerebellum
and somatosensory cortex via thalamus
what do reflexes require and where does this happen?
few (1-2) synapses ⇒ all synapses occur in spinal cord
which pathway to the brain is ipsilateral?
Spinocerebellar tract
- can also be contralateral if it crosses over and then crosses again later
which pathway to the brain is contralateral?
Dorsal column pathway and spinothalamic tract