Sunday, October 24, 2010

other Senses

Temperature
Thermoception is the sense of heat and the absence of heat (cold) by the skin and including internal skin passages, or rather, the heat flux (the rate of heat flow) in these areas. There are specialized receptors for cold (declining temperature) and to heat. The cold receptors play an important part in the dogs sense of smell, telling wind direction, the heat receptors are sensitive to infrared radiation and can occur in specialized organs for instance in pit vipers. The thermoceptors in the skin are quite different from the homeostatic thermoceptors in the brain (hypothalamus) which provide feedback on internal body temperature.

Kinesthetic sense
Proprioception, the kinesthetic sense, provides the parietal cortex of the brain with information on the relative positions of the parts of the body. Neurologists test this sense by telling patients to close their eyes and touch the tip of a finger to their nose. Assuming proper proprioceptive function, at no time will the person lose awareness of where the hand actually is, even though it is not being detected by any of the other senses. Proprioception and touch are related in subtle ways, and their impairment results in surprising and deep deficits in perception and action.[8]

Pain
Nociception (physiological pain) signals near-damage or damage to tissue. The three types of pain receptors are cutaneous (skin), somatic (joints and bones) and visceral (body organs). It was previously believed that pain was simply the overloading of pressure receptors, but research in the first half of the 20th century indicated that pain is a distinct phenomenon that intertwines with all of the other senses, including touch. Pain was once considered an entirely subjective experience, but recent studies show that pain is registered in the anterior cingulate gyrus of the brain.[9]

Direction
Magnetoception (or magnetoreception) is the ability to detect the direction one is facing based on the Earth's magnetic field. Directional awareness is most commonly observed in birds, though it is also present to a limited extent in humans. It has also been observed in insects such as bees. Although there is no dispute that this sense exists in many avians (it is essential to the navigational abilities of migratory birds), it is not a well-understood phenomenon.[10] One study has found that cattle make use of magnetoception, as they tend to align themselves in a north-south direction.[11] Magnetotactic bacteria build miniature magnets inside themselves and use them to determine their orientation relative to the Earth's magnetic field.[citation needed]

Other internal senses
An internal sense or interoception is "any sense that is normally stimulated from within the body".[12] These involve numerous sensory receptors in internal organs, such as stretch receptors that are neurologically linked to the brain.
Pulmonary stretch receptors are found in the lungs and control the respiratory rate.
The
chemoreceptor trigger zone is an area of the medulla in the brain that receives inputs from blood-borne drugs or hormones, and communicates with the vomiting center.
Cutaneous receptors in the skin not only respond to touch, pressure, and temperature, but also respond to vasodilation in the skin such as blushing.
Stretch receptors in the
gastrointestinal tract sense gas distension that may result in colic pain.
Stimulation of sensory receptors in the
esophagus result in sensations felt in the throat when swallowing, vomiting, or during acid reflux.
Sensory receptors in
pharynx mucosa, similar to touch receptors in the skin, sense foreign objects such as food that may result in a gag reflex and corresponding gagging sensation.
Stimulation of sensory receptors in the
urinary bladder and rectum may result in sensations of fullness.
Stimulation of stretch sensors that sense dilation of various blood vessels may result in pain, for example headache caused by vasodilation of brain arteries.

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