Somatosensory system
12 important questions on Somatosensory system
What are somatotropic maps?
The somatosensory cortex receives input from two type fiber (dorsal root afferents), which two fibers?
- Touch and pressure: mechanosensory fiber
- Nocireceptive afferent: pain & temperature
How does the mechanosensory fiber worK?
- Higher grades + faster learning
- Never study anything twice
- 100% sure, 100% understanding
What are the mechanoreceptors in the skin? What are the differences?
- Merkel cell: small receptive field, high precision
- Meissner corpuscle: more sensitive but less precise
- Ruffini corpuscle: detects stretching of the skin and motion/vibration
- Pacinian corpuscle: detects general pressure (skin stretch)
What is the difference between slowly adapting fibers and rapid adapting fibers?
What is the difference between touch and proprioception?
What are the receptors for proprioception?
- Muscle spindles: changes in muscle length
- Golgi tendon: changes in muscle tension
Pain perception is mediated by slow fibers. Which fibers? What is the difference?
Aδ is lightly myelinated and mediates the fast pain/first pain. C fibers are not myelinated and very thin, these mediate the slow pain/second pain.
How is pain & heat transported?
Why do you feel pain when you eat hot peppers?
Why do you feel pain on your chest or arm when you have pain in your heart of oesophagus?
How is pain modulated?
- Descending tracks from e.g. Raphe (serotonin) or locus coeruleus (NA) suppress pain
- Local mechanosensory input suppresses pain
- Endocannabinoids & endorphins suppress pain tracks in the spinal cord
The question on the page originate from the summary of the following study material:
- A unique study and practice tool
- Never study anything twice again
- Get the grades you hope for
- 100% sure, 100% understanding