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Psych 211 (neuro) > Touch > Flashcards

Touch Flashcards

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1
Q

What is the somatosensory system?

A
  • provides information about touch, pressure, temperature, and pain, both on the surface of the skin and inside the body
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2
Q

What are the 3 interacting somatosensory systems?

A
  • the exteroceptive system
  • the interoceptive system
  • the proprioceptive (kinesthesia) system
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3
Q

What is the exteroceptive system?

A
  • cutaneous/skin senses
  • responds to external stimuli applied to the skin
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4
Q

What is the interoceptive system?

A
  • organic senses
  • provides information about conditions within the body and is responsible for efficient regulation of its internal milieu
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5
Q

What is the proprioceptive system?

A
  • monitors information about the position of the body in space, posture, and movement
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6
Q

What are the cutaneous senses?

A
  • skin
  • encode different types of external stimuli
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7
Q

What are the different types of external stimuli the cutaneous senses encode?

A
  • pressure
  • vibrations
  • temperature
  • pain
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8
Q

What is pressure caused by?

A
  • touch
  • mechanical deformation of the skin
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9
Q

When do vibrations occur?

A
  • we move our fingers across a rough surface
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10
Q

What is temperature produced by?

A
  • objects that heat or cool the skin
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11
Q

What is pain caused by?

A
  • many different types of stimuli, but primarily tissue damage
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12
Q

What is the anatomy of the skin?

A
  • epidermis
  • dermis
  • hypodermis
  • Merkel’s disk
  • Ruffini corpuscles
  • Pacinian corpuscles
  • Glbrous skin
  • free nerve endings
  • Meissner’s corpuscles
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13
Q

How many layers of the skin are there?

A
  • 3 (outermost, middle, deepest)
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14
Q

What is the dermis?

A
  • the outermost layer of skin
  • cells here get oxygen from the air (not the blood)
  • collection of dead skin cells, no blood vessels
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15
Q

What is the dermis?

A
  • middle layer of the skin
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16
Q

What is the hypodermis?

A
  • subcutaneous
  • below the skin
  • deepest layer of the skin
17
Q

What are Merkel’s disks?

A
  • respond to local skin indentations (simple touch)
18
Q

What are Ruffini corpuscles?

A
  • sensitive to stretch and the kinesthetic sense of finger position and movement
19
Q

What are Pacinian corpuscles?

A
  • respond to skin vibrations
20
Q

What are Meissner’s corpuscles?

A
  • only found in glabrous skin
  • detect very light touch and localized edge contours (brail-like stimuli)
21
Q

What are free nerve endings?

A
  • primarily respond to temperature and pain
22
Q

What is Glabrous skin?

A
  • hairless skin
23
Q

What are the 2 categories of thermal receptors?

A
  • those that respond to warmth
  • those that respond to coolness
  • pain information is also conveyed by some of these cells
24
Q

What are thermal receptors?

A
  • carry temperature information
  • pain information is also conveyed by some of these cells
  • information is poorly localized
  • the axons that carry it to the CNS are unmyelinated or thinly myelinated (slow action potential)
  • some of the receptor proteins that are sensitive to temperature can also be activated by certain ligands
25
Q

What are the ligands that can activate receptor proteins sensitive to temperature?

A
  • capsaicin molecules activate heat receptors
  • menthol molecules activate cold receptors
26
Q

What is the thermal grill illusion?

A
  • 4 pins; 2 warm, 2 cold
  • when pins move together, can’t tell that it’s two temperatures
  • sensory system gets confused when sharp change in temp, think it’s painful
27
Q

What are sensation of pain and temperature transduced by?

A
  • free nerve endings in the skin
28
Q

What are nociceptors?

A
  • detectors of noxious stimuli
  • pain receptor cells
29
Q

What are the high-threshold mechanoreceptors?

A
  • one type of pain receptor cell
  • pressure receptor cell
  • free nerve endings that respond to intense pressure, like striking, stretching, or pinching
30
Q

How does touch information travel from the body to the brain?

A
  • axons from skin, muscles, and internal organs enter the CNS via spinal nerves
  • 2 main pathways
31
Q

What are the 2 main pathways of touch?

A
  • spinothalamic tract
  • dorsal columns
32
Q

What is the spinothalamic tract pathway?

A
  • poorly localized information (crude touch, temp, pain) crosses over the midline in the spinal cord (ascends contralaterally), just after the first synaptic connection
  • this information ascends to the thalamus through the spinothalamic tract
33
Q

What is the dorsal columns pathway?

A
  • highly localized information (fine touch) ascends ipsilaterally through the dorsal column of the spinal cord
  • first synapse in this pathway is in the medulla
  • the information crosses over to the contralateral side as it ascends to the thalamus
34
Q

Where do the 2 pathways meet?

A
  • get bundled together in the midbrain
  • synapse in the thalamus
  • information goes to primary somatosensory cortex in the parietal lobe
35
Q

Where is the somatosensory homunculus?

A
  • in parietal lobe, in somatosensory cortex
  • right next to primary motor cortex
36
Q

What is the somatosensory homunculus?

A
  • somatotopic map
  • when different sites of primary somatosensory cortex are electrically stimulated, patients report somatosensory sensations in specific parts of their bodies
  • the relationship between cortical stimulations and body sensations is reflected in a somatotopic map of the body surface
37
Q

What is tactile agnosia?

A
  • damage to somatosensory association cortex
  • have trouble identifying objects by touch alone
  • can often draw objects that they are touching, without looking, and they can sometimes identify objects from their drawings
38
Q

What is phantom limb?

A
  • a form of pain sensation that occurs after a limb has been amputated
  • amputees report that the missing limb still exists and that it often hurts
  • due to confusion in the somatosensory cortices (primary and association)
  • brain gets nonsense signals and has difficulty interpreting them
39
Q

What is the treatment for phantom limb?

A
  • pharmacological, electrical, or behavioural have not proven to be very effective
  • mirror box is cheap and easy but effectiveness is unclear

Psych 211 (neuro) (21 decks)

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