Neruoscience Lecture 2: Peripheral Sensation and Pain Flashcards
What two neural mechanisms provide the afferent sensory information?
Somatosensory system and special senses
What is the role of afferent sensory information?
Bring about awareness of our internal and external world
What are the special senses?
- Visual
- Auditory
- Vestibular
- Gustatory
- Olfactory
What does the somatosensory system consist of?
- Touch
- Proprioception
- Temperature
- Pain
What is the role of sensory receptors?
Change energy from the external world into graded potentials that can generate action potentials which can be interpreted by the CNS.
Define sensory transduction
The process by which a stimulus is transformed into an electrical response.
What is the axon size principle?
The larger the diameter of the axon, the faster the conduction velocity because larger axons tend to be more heavily myelinated.
How does the transduction of an action potential occur?
- Involves opening and closing of ion (Na/K) channels
- Gating of these channels allows an ion influx across the membrane
- This can produce a change in the membrane potential in the afferent neuron
What is primary sensory coding?
Conversion of stimulus energy into signal that conveys relavent sensory information to the CNS.
What are important characteristics of a stimulus?
- Location
- Type of energy it represents
- Intensity of energy
What is a neuron’s receptive field?
The area of body that, when stimulated, leads to activity in a particular afferent neuron.
Define acuity
The precision with which we can locate the site of stimulation.
What factors affect acuity?
- Size of receptive field - larger fields, less acuity
- Density of receptors - greater receptor density, greater the acuity
- Amount of receptor overlap - greater overlap, greater acuity
- Amount of convergence of neuronal input - greater convergence, less acuity
What is two-point discrimination?
Minimum distance that two stimuli can be separated and be perceived as two stimuli.
Define dermatomes
Specific cutaneous territory Innervated by a given dorsal root ganglion and associated spinal nerve.
What are the types of sensory receptors?
- Mechanoreceptors
- Thermoreceptors
- Photoreceptors
- Chemoreceptors
- Nociceptors
What do mechanoreceptors respond to?
Mechanical stimuli such as bending of hair, deep pressure, vibrations, stretch, and superficial touch.
What do thermoreceptors respond to?
Temperature of the skin and are active over broad ranges (cold receptors, 10-38 C; warm receptors, 32-45 C)
What do photoreceptors respond to?
Particular light wavelengths
What do chemoreceptors respond to?
Binding of particular chemicals. Some respond to changes in internal environment (ie. oxygen in blood), while others respond to external environment (ie. taste and olfactory)
What do nociceptors respond to?
Responds to different types of stimuli that cause pain, or are on the verge of causing pain. Responds to excessive mechanical deformation, excessive temperatures, and many chemicals.