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A mechanoreceptor, also called mechanoceptor, is a sensory receptor that responds to mechanical pressure or distortion. Mechanoreceptors are located on sensory neurons that convert mechanical pressure into electrical signals that, in animals, are sent to the central nervous system .
Merkel nerve endings are extremely sensitive to tissue displacement, and may respond to displacements of less than 1 μm. A mechanoreceptor's receptive field is the area within which a stimulus can excite the cell. If the skin is touched in two separate points within a single receptive field, the person will be unable to feel the two separate ...
Tactile corpuscles or Meissner's corpuscles are a type of mechanoreceptor discovered by anatomist Georg Meissner (1829–1905) and Rudolf Wagner. [1] [2] This corpuscle is a type of nerve ending in the skin that is responsible for sensitivity to pressure.
The TRPA subfamily plays a significant role in thermosensation. For example, TRPA1 is thought to respond to noxious cold and mechanosensation. [5] The cytoplasmic content of each of these differs significantly, leading researchers to doubt that the cytoplasm is the core of mechanosensation. [6]
The Pacinian corpuscle (also lamellar corpuscle, or Vater-Pacini corpuscle) [1] is a low-threshold mechanoreceptor responsive to vibration or pressure, found in the skin and other internal organs. [2] In the skin it is one of the four main types of cutaneous receptors.
Merkel cell. Merkel cells are found in the skin and some parts of the mucosa of all vertebrates. In mammalian skin, they are clear cells found in the stratum basale [2] [3] (at the bottom of sweat duct ridges) of the epidermis approximately 10 μm in diameter.
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 stimulation of a mechanoreceptor causes mechanically sensitive ion channels to open and produce a transduction current that changes the membrane potential of the cell. [10] Typically the mechanical stimulus gets filtered in the conveying medium before reaching the site of mechanotransduction. [11]