Midterm 2 Study Flashcards
Where is Glabrous Skin Located?
- Non Hairy Skin
- I.e. Lips, palms of hands, etc.
How many Types of Receptors are in Glabrous Skin?
- 4
How are Receptors Classified?
- Receptive Field Size
- Responses to sustained stimulation/indentation of skin (adaption rates)
- Spike train regularity
What is the 5th Receptor?
- Hair Receptor
What is the structure of a Hair Receptor?
- Loses Myelin
- Wraps around the hair follicle as free nerve ending
What does a hair receptor do?
- Responds to bending of hair
What are the four Receptors found in Glabrous Skin?
- Merkel Disk/Cell
- Meissner’s Corpuscle
- Ruffini Ending
- Pacinian Corpuscle
Where are Merkel Disk/Cells located?
- Very Close to the skin surface
- In epidermis on the peak/dome of connective tissue
What causes Merkel Cells to be deformed?
- Indentation of skin
What happens when a Merkel Cell experiences indentation of the skin?
- The cell is pinched and if enough leakiness it generates AP
How is a Merkel Cell classified?
Slowly Adapting Type 1 Receptor
What happens to a Merkel Cell if an indentation is held?
- It continues to fire AP
- It has an irregular discharge, sputters a bit
What does a Merkel Cell code for?
- Velocity and Magnitude of Indentation
- Velocity during indentation
- Discharge rate that’s proportional to the magnitude of indentation
What is the threshold for a Merkel Cell? What is it highly sensitive to?
Threshold
- Moderately Low (30um)
Sensitive
- To Edges and Curvature
Where are Meissner’s Corpuscle Receptors located?
- Right under ridges (in the valleys) in the epidermis
- Very Close to skin Surface
What type of receptor is a Meissner’s Corpuscle?
- Fast Adapting Type 1
What is the Structure of a Meissner’s Corpuscle?
- Connective Tissue Ending
- Located in valleys of the epidermis
- Close to skin surface
- Grouping of Connective Tissue that Spirals around
What causes a Meissner’s Corpuscle Receptor to Fire?
- Pushing/Distorting the connective tissue
What do the Meissner’s Corpuscle Receptors Code for?
- Velocity of skin indentation
- Motion across Skin
- Love Texture
Give an example of when a Meissner’s Corpuscle Receptor would give high bursts of AP
- Running nails over receptive field
What is the Threshold of a Meissner’s Corpuscle Cell?
- Low Threshold (6um)
What Receptor Cell makes of the highest percentage in the hand? What are they sensitive to?
Location
- 40% of receptors in the hand are Meissner’s Corpuscle
Sensitive
- to Low Frequency Vibrations (40-50Hz, i.e. phone)
Where are the Ruffini Endings located?
- in the deep dermis layer
- Buried in Collagen of connective tissue
Describe the Structure of a Ruffini Ending Receptor
- Deep in Dermis
- Buried in Collagen
- Axon shrapnels and weaves amongst collagen
- Lies parallel to surface
What causes distortion of the Ruffini Endings?
- Stretching and Pulling on capsule
What type of discharge does a Ruffini Ending have?
- Regular discharge when stimulated
- 1/3 have background discharge
What type of Receptor is a Ruffini Ending?
- Slowly Adapting Type II
What is the Threshold of a Ruffini Ending?
- High Threshold to indentation (300um)
What causes Ruffini Endings to Fire?
- Hard and Deep indentation
- Sensitive to lateral skin stretch
- Skin stretch must line up with receptors
What is an example of when a Ruffini Ending would be firing?
- Walking (sheer skin pattern through feet)
What do Ruffini Endings Code For?
- a bit for velocity
- Fire like a clock during indentation
Do non-human primates contain Ruffini Ending Receptors?
- NO
What type of receptor is a Pacinian Corpuscle?
- Rapidly Adapting Type II
Where are Pacinian Corpuscle Receptors located?
- Very Deep in Collagen of Dermis
Describe the Structure of a Pacinian Corpuscle
- Very Deep in Collagen of Dermis
- Connected to a single axon
- Myelinated nerve ending that comes in, and loses its myelin right where it enters multilayered connective tissue (like an onion)
What is the Threshold of a Pacinian corpuscle Receptor?
- Very low threshold (0.08um)
What is the most common Receptor in the body
- Pacinian Corpuscle
What do the Pacinian Corpuscle Receptor Cells Code for?
- Acceleration: change in indentation rates
- High-Frequency Vibrations (300-400Hz)
- Microacceleraions with ground
What is an example of when a Pacinian corpuscle receptor would be helpful?
- Walking in heels versus sneakers will have different frequency characteristics
How does Pacinian Corpuscle Receptors Vibration Sensitivity work?
- Concentrically arranged fluid-filled lamellae around sensory nerve terminal
- Fluid between layers of connective tissue filters out low frequencies
- High Frequencies reach the axon
- Transducers of acceleration
What are Pacinian Corpuscle Receptors built for?
- being an accelerometer in joints, skin, and mesentery of gut
What are Pacinian corpuscles very sensitive to?
- alternating inputs, such as mechanical vibrations
What does each cycle of vibrations do to a Pacinian Corpuscle do?
- Generates an AP
What do the 4 Receptors have in common?
- All tied to a single axon
- all are smaller than 1a and 1b, closer to spindle secondary size
- All Roughly the same in nature
- all classic mechanoreceptors that rely on deformation
What is Mechanotransduction?
- The process whereby mechanical energy gets converted to voltage change in sensory afferent neurons
What is common about how the 4 receptors work?
- all classic mechanoreceptors, rely on deformation
- ending has many channels, deformation causes membrane shift
- membrane shift causes AP generation
- All work with voltage changes
What is the one type of receptor cell that gets deformed?
- Slowly adapting type I (Merkel Cell)
What is a Cutaneous Receptive Field?
- The region of skin that is capable of driving a response in a particular neuron
What is unique about type II receptor’s cutaneous receptive fields?
- Large, obscure borders
Do the different Cutaneous Receptive Fields Overlap?
- Yes
Describe a Cutaneous Receptive Field
- Area of stimulation for a particular neuron (receptor cell)
- Central sensitivity, like a bullseye target
- Relative densities vary across different skin regions
What Receptors have higher Cutaneous Receptive Field Densities in the tips of fingers?
- Slow-Adapting Type I (Merkel)
- Fast-Adapting Type I (Meissner’s Corpuscle)
Which Receptors have more equally Distributed Cutaneous Receptive Field Densities?
- Slow-Adapting type II (Ruffini Endings)
- Fast-Adapting Type II (Pacinian corpuscle)
What do the cutaneous receptive fields of Type I FA & Type I SA receptors have in common?
- small receptive fields, with sharp borders
- almost half in the hands are on the finger tips
- Edge Sensitive
What is the difference between the cutaneous receptive fields of Type 1 FA & Type 1 SA receptors?
- Type 1 FA has a more equally distributed gradient
- Type 1 SA has gradient towards hand
Describe the Cutaneous Receptive Field for Type II FA (Pacinian Corpuscles)
- Huge receptive Field
- Very Low threshold
Describe the cutaneous receptive field for Type II SA (Ruffini Endings)
- Large receptive field
- tied to skin stretch
- sensitive to lateral skin strain
How are fingertips able to pick up small objects like pins?
- High Density of Type I receptors (especially Meissner’s
- Incredible resolution of tactile information
How do the size and shape of objects get coded for when holding them?
- SA1s (Merkel)
What happens to FA receptors during sustained contact?
- They go quiet
How do Merkel (SA1s) code for the curvature of an object?
- Using the Receptors as a population
- Varying the size and shape of an object over the receptive field changes the coding
- smaller probe are has higher discharge rate with fewer receptors
- Larger probe has lower discharge rate but more receptors are active
Why do we not need a large number of FA2 and SA2 receptors?
- Very Large Receptive Fields
What is the functional role of the Merkel Cells (SA1)?
- Senses edges, curvature and texture
- Contact information as you tap i.e. phone
What is the functional role of Meissner’s corpuscle?
- Motion Detection and grip control
- Knowing how slippery something is on contact
- i.e. holding glass of beer
What is the functional role of Ruffini Endings?
- Skin stretch, skin strain pattern
- can help gauge how far apart your fingers are
- Proprioception of the hand
What is the functional role of the Pacinian corpuscle receptors?
- feeling through objects, perception of finer texture
- information about contact i.e. walking cane
How do you test the control of grip force?
- Record glabrous skin receptors during pinch grasp using microneurography
- task: grab and hold the object
- Vary: weight, interface, or if the object in air or on ground
- Monitor: acceleration, grasp force, sheer on object
- Results: see what happens when ‘load’ is increased by monitoring the activity of skin receptors as load pulls them down
How do we code for accidental slips (of object)?
When the object moves relative to you
- detected by accelerometer
- Both FA2 and SA1 receptors respond to microslips between object and skin
How do FA2 (Pacinian) respond to microslips between an object and the skin?
- Upon contact FA2 discharges
Slip do to inefficient grip strength - FA2 senses the acceleration of object
- FA2 Fires
- Response is increase in grip force relative to load
- response is unconscious
How does SA1 (Merkel) code for microslips between an object and skin?
- Brief acceleration during microslip
- Instant SA1 burst
- Continue to fire while increasing grip to force ratio
How many unconscious automatic channels correct microslips?
- 2 FA2 and SA1
How do FA1s respond to different surfaces?
Slipperiness
- Not-slippery: few spikes
- Slippery: high activity
Velocity of Grab
- Code as a population for slow
Surface type
- change in interface between skin and object (sandpaper vs suede vs silk)
How do FA1 (Meissner’s) react to slippery surfaces?
- Higher activity and discharge
- ridges in fingertips move up and down on contact, slippery objects have more movement
What do FA1’s tell you about an object when grabbing it?
- When you make contact
- How fast you make contact
- How slippery the thing is you are grabbing
When can FA1’s be critical?
- During walking to help adjust for slippery surfaces
What is a limb matching task?
- Closed eyes and matching position and speed of on limb to other limbs
What are the sources of Proprioception and Kinesthesis?
- Muscle Spindle
- Skin
- Joints
- GTO
How does a muscle spindle contribute to proprioception and kinesthesis?
- Velocity and length of the muscle
- reflexively onto motor neurons and up to the brain
- Primary and secondary: two pipelines dedicated to change in muscle length
How does the skin help with proprioception and kinesthesis?
- length and velocity of skin stretch
- onset of movement
- acceleration
- changes its length around a joint, skin strain (ruffini)
How do Joint help with proprioception and kinesthesis?
- Pressure
- contraction
- sensitivity
- reflexes: tuning the gamma system in the spindle
- can modulate joint receptors
How do Golgi Tendon Organs help with proprioception and Kinesthesis?
- Tension and Force Sensing
Is Kinesthesis Conscious? how?
Yes
- Involves an interpretation/judgment of where you are in space
What are the four main contributors to Kinesthesis? What do they contribute?
- Sense of Position and Movement of Limbs: position relative to you and world around you, how fast they are moving
- Sense of Tension and Force: GTO to some extent
- Sense of Effort and Heaviness: Force output stays the same/ fatigue requires more effort
- Sensations of Body Image and Posture: clinical conditions to pain, distortion
Is proprioception conscious? why?
More Reflexive
- Happens before you know to prevent you from falling over
What is some early evidence of a somatosensory role in proprioception and kinesthesis?
- Dorsal Rhizotomy in animals
- Human Deafferented Subjects
- Clinical Conditions
- Vitamin B6 Toxicity in Cat
How does Dorsal Rhizotomy in animals support the somatosensory role in proprioception and kinesthesis?
- fine motor control disappeared: movement deteriorates
- reflex orientates within spinal cord
- tactile information not getting to brain
What is a dorsal rhizotomy
surgical removal of dorsal root afferent input
How do humans who have been deafferented support somatosensory role in proprioception and kinestheis?
- Familiar tasks remain intact
- New tasks are difficult
How does Guillain-Barre Syndrome support the somatosensory role in proprioception and kinesthesis?
- Woman lost vocal proprioception and sounded deaf
What is Gullain-Barre Syndrome?
- loss of sensation (motor, sensory, or both)
- or increase in pain due to demyelination
- can recover
What does a Vitamin B6 toxicity in cats do?
- Leads to large fibre neuropathy (loss of proprioceptive inputs)
How does vitamin B6 toxicity in cats support a somatosensory role in proprioception and kinesthesis?
- 1as, secondaries, 1bs, afferents from joints and skin demyelinate
- loss of sensory information
What happens when the code for somatosensory is interrupted?
- a dramatic reduction in control and perception of movement
- code is critical for performing normal movements
How are cortical projections for 1a afferents important for kinesthesis?
3rd neuron projection
- medial lemniscus pathway carries information all the way to the cortex
- use information for proprioception and kinesthesis
- muscle spindles very useful for providing code on length and velocity
What is strong evidence that muscle spindles play a conscious role in position/movement sense?
- Illusion of muscle lengthening when vibrating
- Joint and skin receptors arent activated while this is happening
- has to be on the muscle itself, if it isn’t the illusion disappears
What are some examples using vibrations to create an illusion of movement? what do they show?
- Pinocchio effect
- Falling Forward/Backwards
Shows evidence of selectively attending to muscle spindle feedback to determine where you are in space
How do you produce the Pinocchio Effect?
- Grab nose / close eyes
- vibrate bicep: makes it feel like elbow extend
- nose must grow to maintain contact
How do you produce the falling forward illusion?
- bilaterally vibrate tricpes surae tendons in standing position
- illusion of tricep extend and lengthen
How do you activate the falling backwards illusion?
- light source
- vibrate Achille’s tendon
- light source moves vertically upward
What did the Assigned Readin #3 Discuss?
For fast movements, muscle spindles in the agonist may go quiet / become unloaded
- extrafusal muscle shortening faster than .2 resting length/s may result in muscle spindle unloaded, even with gamma drive
- If the agonist muscle spindle is unable to code for position/movement, then antagonist muscle does