Sensory Retraining

Question 1

What are the types of sensation?

Answer 1

• Pain
• Proprioception
• Muscle stretch & tension
• Fine pressure/Light touch
• Deep pressure
• Temperature
• 2-point discrimination
• Vibration

Question 2

Describe what happens in the body when we put our finger on a table.

Answer 2

Light touch at finger:
Stimulus (table) is detected by sensory receptor.
Sensory receptor sends an impulse through action potentials up the arm along neurones towards the spine, along the ulnar nerve.
Joins the spinal cord via a synapse.
Moves up the dorsal column to the brain to the somatosensory primary cortex in the parietal lobe.

Question 3

Describe how we experience sensation.

Answer 3

• Stimulation of peripheral receptors (Pacinian corpuscles, Meissner’s corpuscles, etc.).
• Ascend via peripheral nerve (1a, 1b and C afferents predominantly).
• Enter spinal cord via dorsal horn.
• Ascend via medial lemniscus (touch), spinothalamic (pain and temperature) and spinocerebellar (proprioception) tracts to brain.
• Relays information to somatosensory areas of the cortex (parietal lobe).
• This information is integrated with other afferent information to allow us to produce appropriate motor output.