Organization of Sensory Systems

Chapter
Chapter9 9
 Learning Objectives

¤ Explain the various types of sensory receptors

¤ Describe the pathways for sensorimotor

processing

¤ List the regions of the brain involved in

sensorimotor processing

¤ Describe sensorimotor disorders and their effects

on sensation and behaviour
 Somatosensory Receptors
¤ Sensory receptors in the skin
¤ Vibration
¤ Pressure
¤ Pain
¤ Touch

¤ Receptors grouped into 3 types:

¤ Nociception: Pain and temperature
¤ Hapsis: Fine touch and pressure
¤ Proprioception: Awareness of body in space
 Proprioception
¤ Proprioception is impaired when people are under the
influence of alcohol or certain other drugs
¤ Degree of impairment tested by field sobriety tests
 Sensorimotor Pathways

¤ Spinothalamic Tract:
¤ Sensory pathway of nervous system

¤ Ascending pathway of spinal cord

¤ Skin to thalamus; relayed
upward to somatosensory
cortex

¤ Responsible for transmission of pain,

temperature, and crude touch
 Sensorimotor Pathways
¤ Dorsal column-medial lemniscus
(DCML) pathway:
¤ Sensory pathway of CNS

¤ Runs from spinal cord to medulla

to sensory cortex (i.e., post-
central gyrus)

¤ Conveys sensation of fine touch,

vibration, pressure, two-point
discrimination, and proprioception
 Sensorimotor Pathways
¤ Corticospinal Tract:
¤ Forms part of descending spinal
tract system
¤ Carries movement-related
information from motor cortex
(i.e., precentral gyrus) to spinal
cord
¤ Involved movements, such as
walking, reaching, fine finger
movements (e.g., writing,
typing, buttoning clothes)
 Primary Somatosensory Cortex (S1)

¤ Behind central sulcus (i.e., post-

central gyrus) - receives sensory
information from thalamus

¤ Contains tactile representation

of contralateral side of body

¤ Amount of S1 devoted to a body

part is not proportional to size of
body surface, but relative
density of touch receptors
located on that body part
 Sensory Association Cortex

¤ Parietal Lobe - Major

sensory processing hub
¤ Combines information from
multiple senses into a
usable form

¤ Posterior Parietal
Association Cortex -
Integration of body position
information with location of
objects in space
Sensory Association Cortex

¤ Dorsolateral Prefrontal
Cortex
¤ Decision to execute
voluntary movement

¤ Active when planning

movement

¤ Tells secondary and

primary motor areas what
movements to make
 Primary Motor Cortex

¤ Controls movements of the

muscles
¤ Plan, regulate, and execute
voluntary motor movements
¤ Organized somatotopically
¤ Homunculus – Map along
motor cortex of where each
part of body is processed
 Secondary Motor Cortex
¤ Production of voluntary
movement
¤ Supplementary motor
area – Self-generated
movement

¤ Premotor cortex –
Externally-generated
movement

¤ Cingulate cortex –
Conflict resolution
Basal Ganglia

¤ Initiating movement

¤ Help start, stop, and

control desired
movements, while
inhibiting undesired
movements

¤ Planning, learning, and

execution of new motor
skills
 Cerebellum

¤ Plays a role in motor movement

regulation and balance control

¤ Coordinating movement

¤ Maintaining balance
(including postural
adjustments)
¤ Motor learning (e.g.,
learning to hit a
baseball)
Cerebellar Homunculus
Sequential Production of Movement
 Pain and the Brain

¤ Although the brain is responsible for the

experience of pain, it does not feel pain itself
¤ Contains no pain receptors

¤ Allows surgeons to operate while patient is conscious

¤ Patient can report their
experience when
different areas of the
brain are stimulated
Video: Awake Craniotomy
 Cognition and Pain

¤ Pain is highly modifiable by psychological factors

¤ Expectation:

¤ Optimism boosts effectiveness of pain medication

¤ When surgical patients are told what to expect,
they request less pain medication and leave
hospital earlier

¤ Placebos can also be effective in reducing pain

¤ “Placebo effect”
 Cognition and Pain
¤ Shifting attention
¤ Pain decreases if attention is diverted
¤ VR has been used to keep patients’ attention on
other stimuli then the pain-inducing stimulation.
 Sensorimotor Disorders

¤ Cortical Disorders
¤ Apraxias
¤ Alien limb syndrome
¤ Phantom limb syndrome
¤ Xenomelia
¤ Mirror-touch synesthesia
¤ Congenital insensitivity to pain
 Apraxia
¤ Inability to perform skilled, purposeful movement
¤ Not attributable to primary sensory problems,
paralysis or muscle weakness, or other motor
disturbances (e.g., tremor)

¤ Four major classes:

¤ Ideomotor
¤ Ideational
¤ Constructional
¤ Oral
 Ideomotor Apraxia

¤ Cannot execute or imitate

simple gestures in
response to a command

¤ Intransitive gestures
¤ Waving goodbye;
Hitchhiker’s thumb

¤ Transitive gestures
¤ Flip a coin; Use a
hammer/screw driver
 Ideational Apraxia

¤ Inability to form an idea of

the movement

¤ “An impairment in
knowing how, rather than
what, to do”

¤ Cannot determine which

actions are necessary or
determine order of events

¤ Liepmann – Candle test

Video

¤ Reel-Example: Ideomotor Apraxia

¤ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EvOYeqM-6CE
 Ideomotor vs. Ideational

¤ Hard to disentangle ideomotor & ideational

apraxia

¤ Differences debated: Ideomotor vs. Ideational

¤ Inability to correctly form single movements vs.
inability to correctly sequence a series of
movements
¤ Impairment in knowing how vs. knowing what
¤ Ideational more extreme form of ideomotor
 Constructional Apraxia
¤ Inability to build, assemble, or draw objects
¤ Inability to correctly copy or draw an image
¤ Not caused by misperceiving objects or voluntary
actions

¤ Inability to use visuoperceptual

information to guide voluntary
movements
¤ Deficit in spatial processing -
movements are correct
 Oral Apraxia

¤ Inability to perform skilled movements of the

face, lips, cheeks, tongue, pharynx, or larynx
following a command
¤ Can do it, just not on
command!

¤ E.g.,) Cannot pretend to

suck on a straw, but if
given a straw and cup
could drink from it
Video
 Dressing Apraxia

¤ Deficit in dressing oneself

¤ Problems in orienting limbs while
dressing and manipulating
clothes themselves

¤ Actually a spatial disorder?

Video

¤ Dressing Apraxia
¤ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mLczBWwx0rs
 Tactile Agnosia
¤ Astereognosis
¤ Loss of the ability to identify an object
by touch
¤ Tactile sensation is intact
¤ Can recognize and report basic
features of the object:
¤ Size
¤ Weight
¤ Texture
 Callosal Apraxia

¤ Selective impairment of ability to carry out verbal

requests with the left hand
¤ Resulting from damage to corpus callosum
¤ Characterized by apraxia symptoms

¤ Disconnection between left hemisphere (where

language is processed) and right hemisphere
(controls the left hand)

¤ No deficits in individuals with callosal agenesis

 Alien Limb Syndrome
¤ Person experiences their limbs acting seemingly on
their own - limb doesn’t belong to them

¤ Reach for objects, groping/grasping

movements, “disobeys” directions,
violent behaviour

¤ Attempts to stop behaviour by:

¤ Speaking to limb
¤ Berate it
¤ Restrain it
 Alien Limb Syndrome
¤ Can be observed after
damage to one of a variety
of brain regions:
¤ Parietal lobe
¤ Frontal lobe
¤ Corpus callosum

¤ Varied causes: Surgical,

stroke, tumour, infection,
cortical degeneration
Kloesel et al. (2010)
 Video

¤ Alien Hand Syndrome: When a Limb Goes Rogue

¤ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LvYjJyGkEko
 Phantom Limb Syndrome

¤ Sensation that an amputated or

missing limb is still attached
¤ ~ 60-80% of individuals with an
amputation

¤ Usually painful
¤ Gesturing, itches, twitching, or
even try to pick things up

¤ Sensory input from part of the

body that is no longer existent
 Phantom Limb Syndrome

¤ Result of cortical reorganization

¤ Areas that no long receive sensory input start to
accept from adjacent projections
Video

¤ Phantom Limbs Explained

¤ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySIDMU2cy0Y
 Phantom Pain Treatment

¤ Coping techniques: Muscle relaxation,

meditation, biofeedback, massage and hypnosis

¤ Drugs: Analgesics, muscle relaxants, sedatives,

antidepressants, antipsychotics and
anticonvulsants

¤ Shock therapy and

acupuncture

¤ MIRROR THERAPY!
Video: Phantom Pain Treatment
 Xenomelia

¤ Foreign Limb Syndrome: Desire for an

amputation!
¤ Intense, persistent belief that a limb
does not belong to body - should be
discarded
¤ Typically males, lower limbs
¤ Elective amputation often denied -
individual may attempt self-amputation
or injure limb making amputation
medically necessary
 Xenomelia
¤ McGeoch et al. (2011)
¤ 4 male participants

¤ Able to indicate desired

amputation

¤ MEG showed that foot/thigh

stimulation showed reduced
activation in leg that was desired
to be amputated
¤ 3/4 ended up getting
elective amputation
Mirror-Touch Synesthesia

¤ Person physically "feels" what others are feeling

¤ E.g.,) Seeing someone being hugged, getting
hurt, eating
¤ Mirror system has lower threshold for touch in SI
¤ When perceiving others’
touch they mistake it as their
own
¤ Genetic or stroke
 Invisibilia Podcast -
“Entanglement” Episode
 Congenital Insensitivity to Pain (CIP)

¤ Person cannot feel physical pain, but still feel touch

¤ E.g.,) Case of “Miss C”
¤ No response to electric shocks, boiling water, burns
¤ Did not sneeze, cough,
gag, or blink reflexively
¤ Died at age 29 from
infections that could have
been prevented if she
sensed pain
 Video

¤ Liz Hayes talking about children with congenital

insensitivity to pain
¤ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3U-fGj17go
 Further Fun!

¤ Radiolab – Where Am I?
¤ Phantom limb syndrome
¤ A butcher who suddenly lost his entire sense of
touch
¤ Pilots who lose consciousness and suffer out-of-body
experiences while flying fighter jets

¤ TED Talk – V.S. Ramachandran

 Take Home Message

¤ Somatosensory information is divided into 3 parts:

proprioception, nociception, and hapsis

¤ Somatosensory cortex plays an essential role in the

production of movement
¤ Feedback to brain about the position of body

¤ Different parts of the brain play different roles in the

sense of touch and production of movement

¤ Several conditions can develop from disturbances to

the somatosensory system