Sense Organs

The nervous system is responsible for sensing the external and

internal environments of an organism, and for inducing muscle
movement.

Human sensation is achieved through the stimulation of specialized

neurons, organized into five different modalities—touch, balance,
taste, smell, hearing, and vision.

The touch modality includes pressure, vibration, temperature, pain,

and itch. Some animals are also able to sense magnetism and
electric fields.

Modality, timing, intensity, and location of the stimulus are the four
features that allow the brain to identify a unique sensation.
Sensation Receptors
The neurons specialized to detect sensation are also called
receptors because they are designed to receive information
from the environment.

Each receptor responds only to a stimulus that falls within a

defined region, called its receptive field.

The size of the stimulus can affect the number of receptors

that respond, and the strength of the stimulus can affect how
much they respond.
Transduction refers to the transfer of environmental energy into
a biological signal signifying that energy.

Sensory receptors either transduce their respective stimuli

directly, in the form of an action potential —the
electrochemical communication between neurons—or they
chemically communicate the transduction to a neuron .

Neurons collect information at their dendrites, information

travels through the cell body, and then reaches the axon,
another long process designed to transfer information by
apposing, or synapsing on, another neuron's dendrites.

In some receptors, the axon is branched, and is specialized for

both initializing and transmitting action potentials.
As an example of sensory transduction, figure shows sensory
receptors in a taste bud detecting sugar molecules.

1. When the sugar molecules first come into contact with the
taste bud, they bind to membrane receptors of the
sensory receptor cells.
2. This binding triggers a signal transduction pathway that
causes some ion channels in the membrane to close and
others to open.
3. Changes in the flow of ions alter the membrane potential.
This change in membrane potential is called the receptor
potential
In contrast to action potentials, which are all-or-none
phenomena, receptor potentials vary in intensity;

The stronger the stimulus, the stronger the receptor

potential.

Once a receptor cell converts a stimulus to a receptor

potential, this potential usually results in signals being
sent to the CNS.

In Figure, each receptor cell forms a synapse with a

sensory neuron. When there are enough sugar
molecules, a strong receptor potential is triggered.
This receptor potential makes the receptor cell
release enough neurotransmitter to increase the rate
of action potential generation in the sensory neuron.

The brain interprets the intensity of the stimulus from

the rate at which it receives action potentials.

It gains additional information about stimulus

intensity by keeping track of how many sensory
neurons it receives signals from.
Have you ever noticed how an odor that is strong at first
seems to fade with time, even when you know the smell is still
there? Or how the water in a pool is shockingly cold when you
first jump in, but then you get used to it?

This effect is called sensory adaptation , the tendency of

some sensory receptors to become less sensitive when they
are stimulated repeatedly.

When receptors become less sensitive, they trigger fewer

action potentials, causing the brain to receive fewer stimuli.

Sensory adaptation keeps the body from continuously reacting

to normal background stimuli.

Without it, our nervous system would become overloaded

with useless information.
Sensation consists of signal collection and transduction
The senses are frequently divided into exteroceptive and
interoceptive:

Exteroceptive senses are senses that perceive the body's own

position, motion, and state, known as proprioceptive senses. External
senses include the traditional five: sight, hearing, touch, smell and
taste, as well as thermoception (temperature differences) and
possibly an additional
weak magnetoception (direction). Proprioceptive senses
include nociception (pain); equilibrioception (balance); proprioceptio
n (a sense of the position and movement of the parts of one's own
body).
Interoceptive senses are senses that perceive sensations in internal
organs.
Internal sensation, or interoception, detects stimuli from internal
organs and tissues.

Many internal sensory and perceptual systems exist in humans,

including the vestibular system (sense of balance) sensed by
the inner ear and providing the perception of spatial
orientation, proprioception (body position) and nociception
(pain).

Further internal chemoreception and osmoreception based

sensory systems lead to various perceptions, such
as hunger, thirst, suffocation, and nausea, or different involuntary.

Non-human animals may possess senses that are absent in

humans, such as electroreception and detection of polarized light.
 Classification of Senses
• Classification by type of stimuli required to
activate receptors
Photoreceptors (light)
Chemoreceptor (chemicals)
Pain receptors (injury)
Thermoreceptors (temperature change)
Mechanoreceptors (movement or deforming of
capsule)
Proprioceptors (position of body parts or changes
in muscle length or tension)
 Sensory Pathways
• All sense organs have common functional
characteristics
– All are able to detect a particular stimulus
– A stimulus is converted into a nerve impulse
– A nerve impulse is perceived as a sensation
in the central nervous system
 General Senses
• Distribution is widespread; single-cell receptors
are common
• Examples
– Free nerve endings
• Pain
• Temperature
• Crude touch
– Tactile (Meissner) corpuscles
• Fine touch
• Vibration
– Bulbous (Ruffini) corpuscles
• Touch
• Pressure
 General Senses (Cont.)
• Examples
– Lamellar (Pacini) corpuscles
• Pressure
• Vibration
– Bulboid corpuscles (Krause end bulbs)
• Touch
– Golgi tendon receptors
• Important proprioceptors
– Muscle spindles
• Important proprioceptors
General Sense Receptors
General Sense Organs
Pain receptors

All parts of the human body except the brain have pain
receptors.

Pain is important because it often indicates danger and usually

makes an animal withdraw to safety. Pain can also make us
aware of injury or disease.

Pain receptors may respond to excessive heat or pressure or

to chemicals released from damaged or inflamed tissues.

Prostaglandins are local regulators that increase pain by

sensitizing pain receptors.

Aspirin and ibuprofen reduce pain by inhibiting prostaglandin

synthesis.
Thermoreceptors in the skin detect either heat or cold.

Other temperature sensors located deep in the body monitor

the temperature of the blood.

The body’s major thermostat is the hypothalamus.

Receiving action potentials both from surface sensors and from

deep sensors, the hypothalamus keeps a mammal’s or bird’s
body temperature within a narrow range
Mechanoreceptors are highly diverse.

Different types are stimulated by different forms of mechanical

energy, such as touch and pressure, stretching, motion, and sound.

All these forces produce their effects by bending or stretching the

plasma membrane of a receptor cell.

When the membrane changes shape, it becomes more permeable

to positive ions, and the mechanical energy of the stimulus is
transduced into a receptor potential.

One example of a mechanoreceptor is the touch receptor at the

base of a cat’s whisker. These receptors are extremely sensitive
and enable the animal to detect objects by touch in the dark. The
elephants detect seismic waves through mechanoreceptors in
their feet and trunk.
Chemoreceptors include the sensory cells in your nose and
taste buds, which are attuned to chemicals in the external
environment, as well as some internal receptors
that detect chemicals in your body’s internal environment.

Internal chemoreceptors include sensors in your arteries that

monitor your blood, with some sensors detecting changes in pH
and others detecting changes in O2 concentration.

In all types of chemoreceptors, a receptor cell develops

receptor potentials in response to chemicals dissolved in fluid
such as blood or saliva.
Electromagnetic receptors are sensitive to energy of
various wavelengths, which takes such forms as
magnetism and light.

For example, photoreceptors detect the electromagnetic

energy of light.
Touch receptors.

Touch receptors are a type of mechanoreceptor because they are

activated by mechanical perturbation of the cell membrane.

The axon is located in either shallow or deep skin, and may be

encapsulated by specialized membranes that amplify pressure.

When the appropriate type of pressure is applied to the skin,

these membranes pinch the axon, causing it to fire.

The action potential travels from the point of origin to the

neuron's cell body, which is located in the dorsal root ganglion.

From there, it continues through another branch of the axon into

the spinal cord, even as far as the brainstem.
A very similar system allows proprioceptors to convey information
concerning the position of the limbs and body, and the degree of
tension in muscles.

The axon of the nerve cell is located either in the muscle, tendon,
or joint, and firing is instigated by pinching, as with touch receptors.

Nociceptors convey information about pain and include

temperature, mechanical, and polymodal receptor types.

Temperature nociceptors are activated only by extremely high or

low temperatures. Mechanical nociceptors are activated by
extremely strong pressure against the skin. Polymodal nociceptors
are activated by high temperature, pressure, or chemicals released
from damaged cells.
Most nociceptors are free nerve endings unassociated with
specialized membranes.
Vision receptors.

Vision receptors are called photoreceptors because the

stimuli that activate them are photons of light.

The two types of photoreceptors are called rods and cones.

Rods only sense the intensity of light, while cones can sense
both intensity and color.

While cones function best in bright light, rods function better

in dim light.

Furthermore, rods are located diffusely over the retina at the

back of the eye, but cones are located in the central line of
vision in a region of the retina called the fovea.
For this reason, dim objects in the darkness can be viewed better
from peripheral vision than from direct focus.

There are three kinds of cones in the vertebrate eye—one

responsive to wavelengths of light corresponding to the color blue,
one responsive to red wavelengths, and one responsive to green
wavelengths. These three colors form the entire range of colors that
humans can perceive.

Visual information is carried along the optic nerve and passes

through several relay points before reaching the primary visual area
of the cerebral cortex, located at the back of the brain.

From there it splits into two routes. The dorsal pathway processes
depth and motion while the ventral pathway processes color and
form.
Hearing receptors.

Hearing receptors, or hair cells, are mechanoreceptors located

within a bony spiral structure called the cochlea.

Sounds are interpreted by the brain from patterns of air

pressure caused by the vibration of objects.

Sounds can also travel through water or solid objects.

In mammals, the pressure in the air is transformed into

mechanical pressure by three ear bones called
the malleus , incus , and stapes , located in the middle ear.

Pressure waves that strike the tympanum, a thin membrane

separating the middle from the outer ear, force it to push
inward.
The malleus is attached to the incus and the incus to the stapes,
so that the mechanical activity of the tympanum is transferred
to a coiled structure of the inner ear called the cochlea.

Because this is a fluid-filled structure, the pushing and pulling of

the stapes generates waves in the fluid.

A semi-flexible membrane called the basilar membrane is

located within the fluid, and also conducts the waves of
pressure.

The wave-like motion of the basilar membrane causes a series

of hearing receptors grounded in the basilar membrane to be
pushed up against another membrane just above it, the tectorial
membrane.
Hair-like extensions, stereocilia, at the apex of the hair cell push
and bend against a tectorial membrane, when the basilar
membrane reaches the peak of its wave phase.

This instigates a change in the electrochemical properties of the

cell.

The basilar membrane is formed so that only a particular region

of hair cells is pushed up to the peak of the wave form for any
one frequency, or tone, of sound.

The frequency that a particular hair cell responds to is its

receptive field.

Hair cells are closely coupled to the auditory nerve, and

transmit their auditory information to neurons from this nerve,
which then travels up through the brain.
 The Ear

.
Effect of Sound Waves in the Ear
Balance receptors.

Vertebrate balance receptors are located in a specialized organ in

the inner ear called the vestibular organ.
This structure is located directly adjacent to the cochlea, and is
composed of a triplet of semicircular canals, each of which is
oriented in a different plane—the X, Y, or Z axis.

Movement of liquid in these tubes caused by rotation of the head

or body are measured by vestibular hair cells.

The stereocilia of these cells are embedded in a gelatinous

material called the otolithic membrane.

Gravity and body movements cause the otolithic membrane to

slide, which cause the stereocilia to bend in a particular direction.
This leads to electrochemical changes in the hair cell, causes an
action potential in the associated nerve ending.

Information from the vestibular system allows eye and head

movements to fix on a particular target, and to stabilize a
moving image.

It also allows organisms to balance—for example, when a cat

walks atop a fence.
Smell receptors.

Smell receptors, or olfactory sensory neurons, are chemoreceptors ,

meaning that the binding of molecules causes these neurons to fire.

Olfactory neurons extend a single dendrite to the surface of the skin

in the nose, where it expands—along with dendrites from other
neurons—to form a large knob.

Thin hair-like projections extend from this knob into the thin layer of
mucus within the nose.

These projections contain a diverse array of receptors for odorants,

so that all olfactory neurons are able to respond to a particular
scent.

The number that actually do respond is relative to the concentration

of the scent molecules in the air.
Taste receptors.
Taste-detecting, or gustatory, organs are also chemoreceptors and
are located in functional groupings called taste buds on the tongue,
palate, pharynx, epiglottis, and the upper third of the esophagus.

The tongue is covered with thousands of small bumps

called papillae, which are visible to the naked eye. Within each
papilla are hundreds of taste buds

There are between 2000 and 5000 taste buds that are located on the
back and front of the tongue. Others are located on the roof, sides
and back of the mouth, and in the throat. Each taste bud contains 50
to 100 taste receptor cells.

Taste receptors in the mouth sense the five taste

modalities: sweetness, sourness, saltiness, bitterness,
and savoriness (also known as savory or umami)
Taste buds are able to distinguish between different tastes through
detecting interaction with different molecules or ions.

Sweet, savoriness, and bitter tastes are triggered by the binding of

molecules to G protein-coupled receptors on the cell membranes of
taste buds.

Saltiness and sourness are perceived when alkali

metal or hydrogen ions enter taste buds, respectively.

Taste signals go from the mouth, via cranial nerves, to the medulla
oblongata in the brainstem, then up to the thalamus and on to the
cortex, where the sensation becomes a perception.

What is generally categorized as “taste” is basically a bundle of

different sensations: it is not only the qualities of taste perceived by
the tongue, but also the smell, texture and temperature of a meal
that are important.
About half of the sensory cells react to several of the five basic tastes.
They only differ by having varying levels of sensitivity to the different
basic tastes.

Each cell has a specific palette of tastes with fixed rankings: this means
that a particular cell might be most sensitive to sweet, followed by sour,
salty and bitter, while another has its own ranking.

The full experience of a flavor is produced only after all of the sensory
cell profiles from the different parts of the tongue are combined. The
other half of the sensory cells and nerve fibers are specialized to react
to only one taste. It is the job of these cells to transmit information on
the intensity of the stimulus – how salty or sour something tastes.

Assuming 5 basic tastes and 10 levels of intensity, 100,000 different

flavors are possible. Taken together with the senses of touch,
temperature and smell, there are an enormous number of different
possible flavors.