SOMATOSENSORY SYSTEM

Submodalities: cutaneous sense: mechanoreception (touch), proprioception

(signals from muscles and joints), itch, pain, thermoreception.

Two types of skin: hairy and glabrous.

Glabrous and hairy skins contain in the deep layer Pacinian and Ruffini’s receptors.
Glabrous contains in the superficial layer Meisner’s and Merkel’s receptors
Superficial layer of hairy skin contains also Merkel’s disk.
 Mechanoreceptors of the skin

Why do we have several types of skin receptors?

We should be able to distinguish between rough, smooth, hard and soft surfaces,
feel extension of the skin, vibration and movement on the skin.

Mechanoreceptors that are deeper Mechanoreceptors that are close to

(in both glabrous and hairy) the surface (only in glabrous skin)

Ruffini - sensitive to skin stretch. Shape of the Merkel’s disks – Fine tactile discrimination
hand and fingers, motion on the skin. Form and texture recognition.

Pacinian corpuscles – sense of vibration Meissner - sensitive to stroking (skin motion)

produced by the contact with the object. Tool use. Detect slipping object, important for grip control.
SENSORY RECEPTORS CONTRIBUTING TO PROPRIOCEPTION (position sense) AND THE KINESTHESIA (sensation of limb
movement)
In muscle - muscle spindles and Golgi tendon organs.

In the joints - sensory endings, located in the joint capsule and ligaments. Ruffini endings -sensitive to stretch of the
joint capsule. Golgi tendon-organ receptors in the ligaments.

Mechanoreceptors in hairy skin are well situated for signalling the angles and movements of joints.
 Receptor is the first neurone of sensory system

THE BASIC STRUCTURE OF THE PRIMARY SENSORY NEURON (RECEPTOR)

Skin receptors are unique – they lack dendites and their cell body have no
synaptic contact with other neurones.They are called primary sensory neurones
 HOW LARGE IS THE AREA OF SKIN FROM WHICH A SENSORY NERVE CAN BE ACTIVATED?

EACH INDIVIDUAL RECEPTOR RECEIVES INFORMATION FROM A SMALL FRACTION OF SKIN

RECEPTIVE FIELDS

THE REGION OF SENSORY SPACE (part of a receptive surface) FROM WHICH RECEPTOR OR SENSORY
NEURONE CAN BE ACTIVATED IS CALLED THE RECEPTIVE FIELD
Receptors are not scattered randomly across the skin but
rather have characteristic pattern of position and density

Fingertip has about 100

fibers per cm2
innervating Merkel cells
Mechanoreceptors in glabrous skin vary in size and structure of their receptive fields

The shape and size of receptive

fields can vary depending on where
on the hand they are located
 WHAT DETERMINES HOW WELL ONE CAN DISTINGUISH TWO ADJACENT STIMULATIONS?

Spatial Resolution/Acuity - how well one can distinguish between two adjacent stimuli

Two-point discrimination
The role of intracortical inhibition in
age-related tactile degradation

The size of the receptive

fields varies in the
different body parts

The size of the Receptive Field determines how well one can distinguish two adjacent stimuli (i.e. experience them as
two separate points)
 CUTANEOUS RECEPTORS IN THE FOOT SOLE APPEAR TO CONTRIBUTE TO THE CONTROL OF HUMAN STANCE AND LOCOMOTION

Hairless skin - Sole of foot RESPONSE OF STRETCH SENSITIVE RECEPTOR

FAI-Meissner If the soles of a blindfolded seated subject’s feet are

brushed by a smooth rotating surface, illusory self-
FAII-Pacini rotation will be elicited. The subject, within 10–20
SAI-Merkel seconds, will perceive the rotating platform under his
SAII-Ruffini feet as stationary and experience his body as
rotating in the direction opposite that of the platform.
 HOW DO SIGNALS FROM THE SKIN REACH THE CEREBRAL CORTEX?
The basic structure of the primary sensory neuron (receptor)
Axon diameter is directly proportional to
conduction velocity

The cell bodies of sensory neurons are

located in the dorsal root ganglia.

Axons are divided into A, B and C,

where A is the largest and fastest
and C the smallest and slowest
 Different ascending pathways convey different somatic sensations
Mechanoreception and proprioception, are conveyed separately from temperature and pain

Dorsal column medial

lemniscus pathway Spinothalamc tract

Symptom: loss of sense pain

Symptom: Astereognosis,
andtemperature sensation
Sense of direction, vibration
cuneate nucleus
 somatosensory systems is organized topographically
SIGNALS FROM RECEPTORS IN THE SKIN ARE SENT TO THE CORTEX IN TOPOGRAPHIC ORDER

SOMATOTOPIC MAP IN SOMATOSENSORY CORTEX (SENSORY HOMUNCULUS)

TOPOGRAPHIC ORDER follows neighbor-to-

neighbor relationships: the inputs from adjacent Each body part has its special place on
the cortical body map. The richer the
body parts are always located adjacent to each innervation of the body part, the larger
other at subsequent levels of the CNS. its cortical representation

Topographic maps efficiently group neurons that interact

most often, reducing the requirements for long, slow, and
metabolically costly connections

Topographic maps arise from preserving the spatial order of

the receptor neurons in the sensory epithelium. These include
retinotopic maps of visual space, tonotopic maps of sound
frequency, and somatotopic maps of body surface.
REPRIESENTATION OF THE BODY SURFACE IN THE THALAMIC TACTILE REGION OF THE MONKEY
V. B. Mountcastle and E. Henneman 1952

ARE TOPOGRAPHIC MAP HARDWIRED?

 THE BRAIN IS CARTOGRAPHER

“Topographic Maps are Fundamental to Sensory Processing” (jon h. kaas 1977)

“Much of the mammalian neocortex consists of orderly representations or maps of receptor

surfaces that are typically topographic at a global level, while being modular at the local level”.
 THE BRAIN IS A PLASTIC AND CONTINUOUSLY MODIFIABLE DYNAMIC SYSTEM
Sensory body maps are plastic and modifiable
Brain plasticity - the ability of neural networks to change through growth and reorganization
BRAIN PLASTICITY IS "EXPERIENCE/INJURY INDUCED"

The representations of actively If an area becomes silent, due to nerve damage or anaesthesia,
used body parts will be enlarged adjacent areas expand into the silent vacant space, and in minutes,
patient med amputerad hand

P-pinky (lillfinger)
T- thumb
B- ball of thumb
I - index
Tennis player, Braille readers, string players have increased
representations of the trained arm/hand and decreased RF
size hand. Blind people have increased tactile acuity.
Somatosensory, visual and auditory systems all have a clear topographical order - somatotopic, retinotopic, tonotopic maps
 POSSIBLE BYPRODUCTS OF PLASTICITY
Focal hand and limb dystonia- a painless loss of muscular control in highly practiced movements

Dystonias are defined as a joint sustained and involuntary contraction of agonist and antagonist muscles,
which can cause torsion, repetitive abnormal involuntary movements, and/or abnormal postures
Many professions require repeated and intricate hand movements. However, focal hand dystonia is strikingly more common in musicians than any other group
of professionals, including dentists, surgeons, and writers. This disorder is often referred to in medical literature as occupational cramps (for example,
“violinist’s cramp” and “pianist’s cramp”).

Symptoms
A musician may notice:
• Subtle loss of control in fast passages
• Lack of precision
• Curling of fingers
• Fingers “sticking” to keys
• Involuntary flexion of bowing thumb in strings
A tremor may or may not be associated with the spasms.

In most cases, the dystonia is present only in the context of specific tasks. For example, some woodwind doublers report the dystonia may be present while
playing the clarinet but not while playing the saxophone.

The dystonia may appear extremely sensitive to sensory input: a pianist may experience symptoms while playing on ivory keys but not while playing on plastic
keys. Sometimes the modification of posture and even facial expressions may affect dystonic spasms in the hand.

NEUROPHYSIOLOGICAL CORRELATES OF FOCAL DYSTONIA ARE THE ENLARGED AND PARTIALLY

OVERLAPPING RECEPTIVE FIELDS IN THE SOMATOSENSORY AND MOTOR CORTICES
 Possible mechanism of Plasticity
the role of inhibition in shaping receptive field of cortical neurones

The cartoon to the left shows the normal condition where

receptive fields are dictated by the balance between
competing intact inputs - afferents from different sources
Cortical terminate on the same neurons.
neuron
If axon 2 is silenced (panel on right), the inhibition onto
the collateral from axon 1 is removed (right, top), and
the neuron that originally responded to stimulation of
axon 2 acquires a new receptive field that reflects the
input from axon 1 (black fill)
 THE CUTANEOUS RABBIT ILLUSION

“THE CUTANEOUS RABBIT ILLUSION AFFECTS HUMAN PRIMARY SENSORY CORTEX SOMATOTOPICALLY”
Blankenburg et al. 2006

”… activity in the primary somatosensory cortex representing the middle location (illusory points)
was just as high for the cutaneous rabbit as compared to locations repredenting actual stimulation
at that point”
lateral connections integrate brain functions
WITHOUT CONNECTION THERE IS NO LEARNING OR ACTION
The spatial arrangement of The Cortical Representation of
Whiskers in Rodents Is
the whiskers in discrete rows Precisely the Same From
and columns on the face. Animal to Animal

Learning of Tactile vibration discrimination (9 Hz versus 10 Hz) by one finger

Trained finger

Who is learning the task,

You or just your finger?
 HOW DOES THE CNS LIMIT UNDESIRABLE SPREAD OF EXCITATION?

Lateral inhibition - the mechanism of processing in the form of contrast sharpening

The neuron that is reached by a

stronger stimulus can inhibit a nearby
neuron that received a stimulus of lower
intensity. This creates a contrast in
stimulation which in turn increases
sensory perception.

Lateral inhibition is the mechanism which prevents the spreading of action potentials
from excited neurons to neighboring neurons in the lateral direction. This creates a
contrast in stimulation that allows increased sensory perception
 Lateral inhibition is a common universal mechanism in the nervous system
cortex

Excitation produced by the stimuli has a tendency to spread

around, therefore It should be spatially restricted.

Lateral inhibition is the mechanism which prevents the spreading of action potentials from
excited neurons to neighboring neurons in the lateral direction. This creates a contrast in
stimulation that allows increased sensory perception

lateral inhibition and attention Lateral inhibition is essential for:

formation of receptive field
Change Blindness selective finger movement,
Inattentional blindness development of unilateral reaching in
infants,
attention,
memory retrieval ,
inhibition of the mirror movement
fine motor control
cognitive function
WHAT DETERMINES THE ABILITY TO PERCEIVE THE SHAPE OF AN OBJECT IN THE HAND

Stereognosis - the ability to perceive the shape of an

object in the absence of visual information

Complex receptive fields of cortical cells in SII ( secondary somatosensory cortex )

Edge-sensitive neurons
 Sensory substitution
Reading Braille

The average reading

speed is about 125
words per minute, but
greater speeds of up to
200 words per minute
are possible.

How the Blind See Braille?

“whether you are reading with your eyes or with your hands, the same part of the visual cortex is
activated”
 Seeing with tongue - Sensory substitution

ONE SENSORY INPUT CAN BE REPLACED BY ANOTHER

Electrotactile stimuli are delivered to the

tongue via flexible electrode arrays placed
in the mouth. An image is captured by a
head-mounted video camera. The TDU
(tongue display unit) converts the video
into a pattern of 144 low-voltage pulse
trains each corresponding to a pixel. The
subject experiences the resulting stream of
sensation as an visual image

Storliken av Receptivt fält