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A sensory system consists of sensory neurons (including the sensory receptor cells), neural pathways, and parts of the brain involved in sensory perception and interoception. Commonly recognized sensory systems are those for vision , hearing , touch , taste , smell , balance and visceral sensation.
External receptors that respond to stimuli from outside the body are called exteroreceptors. [4] Exteroreceptors include chemoreceptors such as olfactory receptors and taste receptors, photoreceptors (), thermoreceptors (temperature), nociceptors (), hair cells (hearing and balance), and a number of other different mechanoreceptors for touch and proprioception (stretch, distortion and stress).
The somatosensory cortex encodes incoming sensory information from receptors all over the body. Affective touch is a type of sensory information that elicits an emotional reaction and is usually social in nature, such as a physical human touch. This type of information is actually coded differently than other sensory information.
Stimulation of sensory receptors in the esophagus result in sensations felt in the throat when swallowing, vomiting, or during acid reflux. Sensory receptors in pharynx mucosa, similar to touch receptors in the skin, sense foreign objects such as mucus and food that may result in a gag reflex and corresponding gagging sensation.
Hair follicle receptors called hair root plexuses sense when a hair changes position. Indeed, the most sensitive mechanoreceptors in humans are the hair cells in the cochlea of the inner ear (no relation to the follicular receptors – they are named for the hair-like mechanosensory stereocilia they possess); these receptors transduce sound for ...
Sensory receptors can receive stimuli from outside the body, as in touch receptors found in the skin or light receptors in the eye, as well as from inside the body, as in chemoreceptors and mechanoreceptors. When a stimulus is detected by a sensory receptor, it can elicit a reflex via stimulus transduction.
Stimulus modality, also called sensory modality, is one aspect of a stimulus or what is perceived after a stimulus. For example, the temperature modality is registered after heat or cold stimulate a receptor. Some sensory modalities include: light, sound, temperature, taste, pressure, and smell.
Sensory receptors are present all throughout the body, and they take a certain amount of a stimulus to trigger these receptors. The use of these sensory receptors allows the brain to interpret the signals to the body which allow a person to respond to the stimulus if the stimulus reaches a minimum threshold to signal the brain.