Somatic nervous system

The nervous-system division that carries sensory information from the body to the central nervous system and motor commands to skeletal muscles.

Somatic sensory system: The pathways and receptors that convey touch, pain, temperature, and body-position information to the central nervous system. It supplies the sensory branch of somatic function.
Central nervous system: The brain and spinal cord, which process information and coordinate nervous-system activity. Somatic pathways carry signals to and from this central processing system.
Peripheral neuropathy: Damage or disease affecting nerves outside the brain and spinal cord. It can impair somatic sensation, muscle strength, or reflexes.
Autonomic nervous system: The nervous-system division regulating involuntary functions of smooth muscle, cardiac muscle, and glands. Unlike somatic output to skeletal muscle, it primarily controls visceral effectors.
Somatic motor system: The neurons and pathways that carry commands from the central nervous system to skeletal muscles. It carries the division’s output to muscles.
Peripheral nervous system: The nerves and ganglia outside the brain and spinal cord. The somatic division is organized within this broader system.
Radiculopathy: A disorder caused by compression or irritation of a spinal nerve root. It disrupts sensory or motor signals carried through somatic spinal roots.
Enteric nervous system: The neural networks in the gastrointestinal tract that coordinate digestion and gut function. Its local control of digestion contrasts with somatic control of skeletal muscles.
Dorsal root ganglion: A cluster of sensory-neuron cell bodies beside the spinal cord. Its neurons bring somatic sensory signals into the spinal cord.
Sensory neuron: A neuron that conveys information from sensory receptors toward the central nervous system. Somatic sensation depends on sensory neurons linking body receptors to the CNS.

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