Knowra Somatosensory system Somatosensory system The sensory system that detects touch, pressure, vibration, temperature, pain, and body position through receptors in the skin, muscles, joints, and internal organs.
Mechanoreceptor : A sensory receptor that responds to mechanical forces such as touch, pressure, stretch, or vibration. Skin and deeper tissues use these receptors to encode physical deformation.
Proprioception : The sense of the body's position and movement, based on signals from muscles, tendons, and joints. It supplies the body-position information included in somatosensation.
Two-point discrimination : A measure of the smallest separation at which two simultaneous skin contacts are perceived as distinct. It tests spatial acuity, which varies across body regions and receptor density.
Special senses : Vision, hearing, taste, smell, and balance, mediated by specialized sensory organs and pathways. Unlike these senses, somatosensation arises from receptors distributed across the body.
Body schema : The brain's continually updated representation of the body's shape, position, and movement. Somatosensory input helps maintain this representation during action and rest.
Nociceptor : A sensory neuron ending that responds to potentially tissue-damaging stimuli. These receptors initiate signals that the nervous system can interpret as pain.
Touch : The perception of physical contact and deformation at the body's surface. Touch is the system's most familiar mode of detecting contact with objects.
Monofilament test : A clinical test that uses calibrated nylon filaments to assess light-touch sensation. It detects loss of protective sensation, especially in peripheral neuropathy.
Visceral sensation : Sensory information from internal organs, including distension, chemical conditions, and pain. Its internal-organ signals overlap with somatosensation but are often processed differently.
Cortical homunculus : A distorted body map showing how much primary somatosensory cortex represents each body region. Its unequal proportions reflect differences in sensory acuity across the skin.
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