Exam Three - General Principals of Sensory Processing, Touch, and Pain

What are sensory receptor organs?

organs specialized to detect a certain stimulus

receptor cells within sensory organs convert the stimulus into what type of signal?

electrical signals

sensory organs are very diverse, but they all have the same end point…

converting information into a neural signal

the conversion of a stimulus into a change in membrane potential in a receptor cell is called…

transduction

the doctrine of specific nerve energies

receptors and neural channels for different senses are independent

the concept of labeled lines says that the brain recognizes distinct senses because…

action potentials travel along separate nerve tracts

free nerve endings detect

pain and temperature

Merkels disk detects

fine touch

Meissner’s corpuscle detects

light touch

Pacinian (or lamellated) corpuscle detects

vibration and pressure

Ruffini’s ending detects

stretch

the corpuscle is a skin receptor that detects vibration and pressure, how does this happen?

stimulus opens stretch-sensitive sodium channels made of protein called piezo and produces grader receptor potentials (or generator potentials), when the potential is big enough and the threshold is reached, an action potential is produced

as the strength of a stimulus increases…

more neurons sensitive to higher intensities are recruited