General Senses

Sense
The ability to perceive stimuli.

Sensation or perception is the

conscious awareness of stimuli
received by sensory receptors.
 General Senses
Are those with receptors distributed
over a large part of the body.

Somatic senses
Visceral senses
Special senses
 General Senses
Sense of touch, pressure, pain
temperature, vibration, itch and
proprioception. Which is the
sense of movement and
position of the body and limbs.
Receptors
Are sensory nerve endings, or
specialized cells capable of
responding to to stimuli by
developing actions potentials.
3 different types of Receptor
Mechanoreceptor
Chemoreceptor
Photoreceptors
Thermoreceptors
Nociceptor
 Mechanoreceptor
Respond to mechanical
stimuli such as bending or
stretching of receptor.
 Chemoreceptor
Respond to chemicals
such as odor
molecules.
 Photoreceptors
Respond to lights

Thermoreceptor
Respond to temperature changes

Nociciptor
Respond to stimuli that result in the
sensation of pain
 Free nerve endings
Many of the receptors for the general
senses are associated with the skin.
Others are associated with deeper
structure like tendon ligaments and
muscles. Common type of receptor
nerve endings are free nerve endings
 Receptors
Receptor for temperature are either cold receptor or
hot receptor.

Cold receptor respond to decreasing temperatures

but stop responding to temperature below 12C or
54F.

Hot receptors respond to increasing temperature,

but stop responding at temperature above 47C or
117F

Sometimes its difficult to to distinguish very cold or

very warm because pain receptors stimulated below
12C or above 47C
 Touch Receptors
Structurally more complex than
free nerve endings and many of
them enclosed with capsules.
Merkel’s disks small superficial
nerve endings involved in
detecting light touch and
superficial pressure.
 Hair follicle receptor
Associated with hair are also
involved in the detecting light
touch. Light touch receptors are
very sensitive but are not very
discriminative meaning that the
point being touch cannot be
precisely located.
Receptors for fine, discriminative touch
called Meissner’s corpuscles are located
just deep to the epidermis. This receptors
are very specific in localizing tactile
sensations.
Deeper tactile receptors called Ruffini end
organ play an important role in detecting
continuous pressure in the skin.
The deepest receptors are the receptors
associated with tendons and joints called
pacinian corpuscles.(proprioception)
 Pain
Pain is a sensation characterized by a group of
unpleasant perceptual and emotional experiences.

Two types of pain sensation:

1. sharp, well-localized, pricking or cutting pain pain
reburning or aching pain resulting from action
potentials that are propagated more slowly.
2. Diffuse, burning or aching pain resulting from
action potentials that are propagated more
slowly.
Superficial pain sensations
Are highly localized as a result of
the simultaneous stimulation of
pain receptors and tactile
receptors, which help to localize
the source of the pain stimuli.
Deep or visceral pain sensation
Are not highly localized because of
the absence of tactile receptors in
the deeper structures. Visceral
pain stimuli are normally perceived
as diffuse pain.
 Action potentials from pain
receptors
In the local areas of the body can be
suppressed by chemical aesthetics
injected near a sensory receptor or
nerve and result in reduced pain
sensation. A treatment called local
anesthesia.
 General Anesthesia
Pain sensation can be also be
suppressed if loss of
consciousness is produced. This is
usually accomplished by chemical
aesthetics that affect the reticular
formation.
 Gate Control Theory
non-painful input closes the nerve
"gates" to painful input, which
prevents pain sensation from
traveling to the central nervous
system.
 In the Gate Control Theory, a closed
"gate" describes when input to
transmission cells is blocked, therefore
reducing the sensation of pain. An
open “gate” describes when input to
transmission cells in permitted,
therefore allowing the sensation of
pain.
 Referred Pain
Is a painful sensation perceived to
originate in a region of the body that is
not the source of the pain stimulus.
Sensed in the skin or other superficial
structures when deeper structures
such as internal organs are damaged
or inflamed.
 Referred Pain
This occurs because sensory neurons
from the superficial area to which the
pain is referred and the neurons from
the deeper, visceral area where the
pain stimulation originates converge
onto the same ascending neurons in
the spinal cord.
 Referred pain
Referred pain is clinically useful in
diagnosing the actual cause of the
painful stimulus. For example, during a
heart attack, pain receptors in the heart
are stimulated when blood flow is
blocked to some of heart muscle. Heart
attack victims do not feel the pain in
the heart instead feel what they
percieve as cutaneous radiating from
the left shoulder down the arm.
 Phantom Pain
Occurs in people who have had appendages
amputated.

Refers to ongoing painful sensations that

seem to be coming from the part of the limb
that is no longer there. The limb is gone, but
the pain is real.
 Peripheral Mechanism
Neuromas formed from injured nerve endings at the
stump site are able to fire abnormal action
potentials and were historically thought to be the
main cause of phantom limb pain. Although
neuromas are able to contribute to phantom pain,
pain is not completely eliminated when peripheral
nerves are treated with conduction blocking
agents.] Physical stimulation of neuromas can
increase C fiber activity, thus increasing phantom
pain, but pain still persists once the neuromas have
ceased firing action potentials. The peripheral
nervous system is thought to have at most a
modulation effect on phantom limb pain.
 Special Senses
The sense of smell. Taste, sight,
hearing and balance are associated
with very specialized, localized sensory
receptors.
 SMELL

Taste and smell are separate senses with their own receptor organs, yet
they are intimately entwined. Tastants, chemicals in foods, are detected
by taste buds, which consist of special sensory cells. When stimulated,
these cells send signals to specific areas of the brain, which make us
conscious of the perception of taste.

Similarly, specialized cells in the nose pick up odorants, airborne odor

molecules. Odorants stimulate receptor proteins found on hairlike cilia
at the tips of the sensory cells, a process that initiates a neural response.
Ultimately, messages about taste and smell converge, allowing us to
detect the flavors of food.
Tastants, chemicals in foods, are detected by taste buds,
special structures embedded within small protuberances
on the tongue called papillae.

When the sensory cells are stimulated, they cause signals

to be transferred to the ends of nerve fibers, which send
impulses along cranial nerves to taste regions in the
brainstem.

From here, the impulses are relayed to the thalamus

on to a specific area of the cerebral cortex,which makes us

conscious of the perception of taste.
Airborne odor molecules, called odorants, are detected by
specialized sensory neurons located in a small patch of
mucus membrane lining the roof of the nose.

Odorants stimulate receptor proteins found on hairlike cilia

at the tips of the sensory cells, a process that initiates a
neural response.

Axon of these sensory cells pass through perforations in the

overlying bone and enter two elongated olfactory bulb lying
against the underside of the frontal lobe of the brain
each odorant has its own pattern of activity, which is set
up in the sensory neurons.

sent to the olfactory bulb, where other neurons are

activated to form a spatial map of the odor.

Neural activity created by this stimulation passes to the

primary olfactory cortex at the back of the underside, or
orbital, part of the frontal lobe.

Olfactory information then passes to adjacent parts of

the orbital cortex, where the combination of odor and
taste information helps create the perception of flavor.
Neuronal Pathway for Olfaction
Axons from olfactory neurons form the olfactory nerves
(cranial nerve I).

Foramina of the cribriform plate

Enter the olfactory bulb

Relay action potentials to the brain through olfactory tracts

Olfactory cortex (in temporal and frontal lobes)

 Taste

The sensory structures that detect taste stimuli are

the taste buds.

Taste buds are oval structures located on the

surface of certain papillae, which are enlargements
on the surface of the tongue. Taste buds are also
distributed throughout others areas of the mouth
and pharynx such as the palate, root of the tongue
and epiglottis.
Specialized epithelial cells form the exterior
supporting capsule of the taste bud, and the
interior of each bud consist of about 40 taste
cells. Each taste cell contain hairlike
processes called taste hairs, that extend into
a tiny opening in the surrounding stratified
epithelium, called taste pore.
Dissolve in the molecules or ions bind to
receptors on the taste hairs and initiate
actions potentials that are carried by sensory
neurons to the parietal lobe of the cerebral
cortex.
Neuronal Pathway for taste
Taste sensation from the anterior two-thirds of the tongue are
carried out by the facial nerve (cranial nerve VII)

Taste sensation from the posterior third of the tongue are

carried out by the glossopharyngeal nerve (cranial nerve IX).

The vagus (X) carried some taste sensation from the root of
the tongue.

Axons from these 3 synapse in the gustatory portion of

brainstem nuclei. Axons of neurons from neurons in the
thalamus project to the taste area in the parietal lobe of the
cerebral cortex
 Vision
The vision includes eyes, the accessory
structure and the sensory neurons that
project to the cerebral cortex where action
potentials conveying visual information are
interpreted.
 Accessory Structure
This protect lubricates and move
the eye. They include the
eyebrows eyelids conjunctiva
lacrimal apparatus and extrinsic
eye muscles.
Eyebrows
The eyebrows protect the eyes by preventing
perspiration which can irritate the eyes from
running down the forehead and into them.
They also shade the eyes from direct sunlight.
 Eyelids
The eyelids with their associated lashes,
protect the eyes from foreign objects. If an
object suddenly approaches the eye, the
eyelids protect the eye by closing and then
opening quite rapidly (blink reflex).

Blinking which normally occurs about 20

minute, also helps to keep the eyes
lubricated by spreading tears over the
surface of the eye.
 Conjunctiva
It is a thin, transparent mucous
membrane covering the inner
surface of the eyelids and the
anterior surface of the eye.
Conjunctivitis is an inflammation of
the conjunctiva.
 Lacrimal Appratus
Consist of a lacrimal gland situated in the superior
lateral corner of the orbit and a naso lacrimal duct
and associated structures in the inferior medial
corner of the orbit.

Lacrimal gland produces tears which pass over the

anterior surface of the eye. Most of the fluid
produced by the lacrimal gland glands evaporates
from the surface of the eye, but excess tears are
collected in the medial angle of the eye by small
ducts called lacrimal canaliculi. These open in
lacrimal sac an enlargement of nasolacrimal duct
opens into nasal cavity.
 Extrinsic Eye Muscles
Movement of each eyeball is
accomplished by six skeletal muscles
called extrinsic eye muscle. Four of
these muscles run more or less straight
from their origins in the posterior
portion of the orbit of the eye, to attach
to the four quadrants of the eyeball.
 Anatomy of the eye
The eyeball is a hollow fluid filled
sphere. The sphere has larger
posterior compartment which makes
up about five-sixth of the eye.and
much smaller anterior compartment
which makes up about one sixth of the
eye.
Fibrous Tonic
The sclera is the firm white outer connective tissue layerof the
posterior five-sixth of the fibrous tonic.
Hearing processing
Hearing processing
1. Sound transfers into the ear canal and causes the eardrum to move
2. The eardrum will vibrate with vibrates with the different sounds
3. These sound vibrations make their way through the ossicles to the
cochlea
4. Sound vibrations make the fluid in the cochlea travel like ocean waves
5. Movement of fluid in turn makes the hair cells The auditory nerve
picks up any neural signals created by the hair cells. Hair cells at one
end of the cochlea transfer low pitch sound information and hair cells
at the opposite end transfer high pitch sound information.
6. The auditory nerve moves signals to the brain where they are then
translated into recognizable and meaningful sounds. It is the brain that
“hears”.
Hearing processing
Interpretation of sounds
The auditory cortex was previously subdivided into primary
(A1) and secondary (A2) projection areas and further
association areas. The modern divisions of the auditory cortex
are the core (which includes A1), the belt, and the parabelt.
The belt is the area immediately surrounding the core; the
parabelt is adjacent to the lateral side of the belt.[5]
Besides receiving input from the ears via lower parts of the
auditory system, it also transmits signals back to these areas
and is interconnected with other parts of the cerebral cortex.
 Extrinsic eye muscles
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