Kinesthesia and Somatosensation Review

Practice flashcards for reviewing key concepts related to kinesthesia, somatosensation, and chemical senses.

Kinesthesia

Awareness of the position and movement of our body in space.

Proprioception

Perception mediated by kinesthetic and internal receptors.

Somatosensation

Collectively, sensory signals from the skin, muscles, tendons, joints, and internal receptors.

Meissner's corpuscle

A mechanoreceptor sensitive to light touch.

Pacinian corpuscle

A mechanoreceptor sensitive to deep pressure and vibration.

Ruffini endings

A mechanoreceptor that responds to skin stretch and sustained pressure.

Free nerve endings

Nerve endings that detect temperature and pain.

Two-point discrimination test

A measure of the ability to discern that two nearby objects touching the skin are truly two distinct points.

Rapidly adapting receptors

Receptors that quickly decrease firing rate in response to a sustained stimulus.

Slowly adapting receptors

Receptors that continue to signal throughout the duration of a stimulus.

Chemical senses

Senses that detect chemicals, including olfaction (smell) and taste.

Olfaction

The ability to detect odors through the olfactory system.

Anosmia

Loss of the sense of smell.

Retronasal olfaction

The sensation of odor that comes from food as it is ingested and travels up to the nasal cavity.

Synaptogenesis

The formation of new synapses between neurons.

Apoptosis

Programmed cell death that occurs in cells that are not needed.

Neuroplasticity

The ability of the brain's neural networks to change through growth and reorganization.

Long-term potentiation (LTP)

A long-lasting increase in synaptic strength based on recent patterns of activity.

Long-term depression (LTD)

A long-lasting decrease in synaptic strength that occurs in response to prolonged low-frequency stimulation.

Dorsal column-medial lemniscal pathway

Neural pathway that carries fine touch and proprioceptive information to the brain.

Dermatome

An area of skin that is mainly supplied by a single spinal nerve root.