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Chapter 8. Special-Senses
Chapter 8. Special-Senses
Special Senses
Special Senses
- Consist of the four traditional senses
o Smell
o Taste
o Sight
o Hearing
- Equilibrium is the fifth special sense, and its receptors are housed in the ear, along with the organ of hearing
Special Sense Receptors
- Eyes and ears: large, complex sensory organs
- Taste buds and olfactory epithelium: localized clusters of receptors
Eyeball
- The eye itself
- A hollow sphere
o Humors
Fill the interior of the eyeball
Help maintain the eyeball’s shape
o Lens
Main focusing apparatus
Supported within the eye cavity, dividing it into two
chambers
- Its wall is composed of three layers
o Fibrous layer
o Vascular layer
o Sensory layer
Layers Forming the Wall of the Eyeball
1. Fibrous layer
o Outermost layer
o Consists of the protective sclera and the transparent cornea
Sclera
Thick, glistening white connective tissue
Seen anteriorly as the “white of the eye”
Cornea
Crystal clear central anterior portion of the
fibrous layer
Referred to as the “window” through which light
enters the eye
Well supplied with nerve endings, mostly pain fibers
When touched, blinking and increased tearing occur
Most exposed part of the eye and vulnerable to damage but has extraordinary self-
repair ability
Only tissue that is transplanted from one person to another without the worry of
rejection because it has no blood vessels and is beyond reach of the immune system
2. Vascular layer
o Middle layer
o Has three distinguishable regions
Choroid
Most posterior
Blood-rich nutritive tunic
Contains a dark pigment that prevents light from scattering inside the eye
Moving anteriorly, it is modified to form two smooth muscle structures, the ciliary
body and iris
Ciliary body
Where the lens is attached by a suspensory ligament called the ciliary zonule
Iris
Pigmented and has a rounded opening, the pupil, through which light passes
Formed by circularly and radially arranged smooth muscle fibers
Act like the diaphragm of a camera and regulates the amount of light entering the eye
so that we can see as clearly as possible in the available light
In close vision and bright light, circular muscles contract and pupil constricts
In distant vision and dim light, radial fibers contract and pupil enlarge or dilate
3. Sensory layer
o Retina
Innermost sensory layer
Delicate and two-layered
Extends anteriorly only to the ciliary body
Pigmented layer
Outer layer of the retina
Composed of pigmented cells that absorb light and prevent light from
scattering inside the eye and act as phagocytes to remove dead or damaged
receptor cells and store vitamin A needed for vision
Neural layer
Transparent inner layer of the retina
Contains millions of receptor cells, the rods and cones, called photoreceptors
that respond to light
Electrical signals pass from the photoreceptors via a two-way neuron chain (bipolar cells and
ganglion cells) before leaving the retina via the optic nerve as nerve impulses that are
transmitted to the optic cortex, resulting to vision
Photoreceptor cells are distributed over the entire retina, except where the optic nerve
(composed of ganglion cell axons) leaves the eyeball, this site is called the optic disc or blind
spot
When light from an object is focused on the optic disc, the object disappears from our
view and we cannot see it
Rods and cones are not evenly distributed in the retina
Rods
Are most dense at the periphery or edge of the retina and decrease in number
as the center of the retina is approached
Allow us to see in gray tones in dim light and provide our peripheral vision
Cones
Densest in the center of the retina and decrease in number toward the retinal
edge
Discriminatory receptors that allow us to see the details of our world in color
under bright light conditions
Has three varieties sensitive to wavelengths of visible light
i. Blue cones (420 nm): responds most vigorously to blue light
ii. Green cones (530 nm): responds most vigorously to green light
iii. Red cones (560 nm): responds to a range of wavelengths of light and
is the only cone population to respond to red light
Impulses received at the same time from more than one type of cone by the
visual cortex are interpreted as intermediate colors
i. When we get simultaneous impulses from blue and red color
receptors, we see purple or violet tones
ii. When all three cones are stimulated, we see white
iii. When red light shines into one eye and green in the other, we see
yellow
Fovea centralis
Lateral to each blind spot
A tiny pit that contains only cones
Area of greatest visual acuity, or point of sharpest vision
Anything we wish to view critically is focused on here
Lens
- Focuses the light entering the eye to the retina
- A flexible biconvex crystal-like structure
- Held upright in the eye by a suspensory ligament, the ciliary zonule, attached to the ciliary body
- Divides the eyes into two segments or chambers
o Anterior (aqueous) segment
Anterior to the lens
Contains a clear watery fluid called aqueous humor
Aqueous humor
Similar to blood plasma
Continually secreted by a special area of the choroid
Helps maintain intraocular pressure or pressure inside the eye
Provides nutrients for the avascular lens and cornea
Reabsorbed into the venous blood through the scleral venous sinus or canal
of Schlemm, located at the junction of the sclera and cornea
o Posterior (vitreous) segment
Posterior to the lens
Filled with a gel-like substance called vitreous humor/body
Vitreous humor
Helps prevent the eyeball from collapsing inward by reinforcing it internally
Tonometer
- Instrument used to measure the intraocular pressure
o This examination should be performed yearly
on people over 40
Could detect certain pathological
conditions, such as diabetes,
arteriosclerosis, and degeneration of
the optic nerve and retina
Ophthalmoscope
- Instrument that illuminates the interior of the eyeball
- Allows viewing and examination of the retina, optic
disc, and internal blood vessels at the fundus, the
posterior wall of the eye
Physiology of Vision
Pathway of Light through the Eye and Light
Refraction
- The speed changes and light rays are bent or refracted when light passes from one substance to another
substance with different density
- Light rays are bent in the eye as they encounter the cornea, aqueous humor, lens, and vitreous humor
o The refractive or bending power of the cornea and humors are constant
o That of the lens can be changed by changing its shape, making it more or less convex so that light can
properly be focused on the retina
The greater the lens convexity or bulge, the more it bends the light
The smaller the lens convexity or the flatter the lens, the less it bends the light
Vision problems occur when a lens is too strong (overconverging) or too weak
(underconverging)
Real image: image formed on the retina as a result of the lens’ light-bending activity which is
reversed from the left to right, upside down (inverted), and smaller than the object
- Light from a distant source (over 20 feet away) approaches the eye as parallel rays and the lens does not need
to change shape to focus properly on the retina
- Light from a close source tends to scatter and diverge or spread out and the lens must bulge more to make
close vision possible
o Accommodation: the ability of the eye to focus on close objects
o To achieve this, the ciliary body contracts to allow the lens to become more convex