PSYC304: Sensory Processing Principles Quiz

PSYC304: General Principles of Sensory Processing, Touch, and Pain

• The course covers general principles of sensory processing, touch, and pain.
• The lecture outline covers principles of sensory processing, types of somatosensation, pain, thermosensation, and itch.
• Learning objectives include differentiating sensation and perception, top-down versus bottom-up sensory processes, properties of the five senses, neural signal transduction, and methods to manage pain.
• Sensation and perception are parts of a continuous process.
• Sensory systems have restricted responsiveness.
• Bottom-up processing involves detecting specific stimulus features, combining into complex forms, and recognizing the stimulus.
• Top-down processing involves formulating perceptual hypotheses, selecting and examining features, and recognizing the stimulus.
• Sensory stimulation is received by receptor cells which then transduce this stimulation into receptor potentials (cf. PSPs) using ionotropic receptors. 
• The neural information is delivered to our brain via metabotropic receptors.
• The five senses are based on mechanical (touch, hearing, vestibular, joint), visual, thermal, chemical (taste, smell), electrical (vomeronasol, electroreceptive), and magnetic senses (and potentially more).
• Sensory receptor organs detect energy or substances.
• Different animals have different sensitivities to different frequencies of sound.
• Vertebrate and octopus eyes have similar structures.
• The doctrine of specific nerve energies and labeled lines describe how our brain differentiates sensations.
• Receptors in the skin include free nerve endings, Merkel's discs, Meissner's corpuscles, hair follicle receptors, Pacinian corpuscles, and Ruffini's endings.
• The Pacinian corpuscle is a type of skin receptor that detects vibrations.
• Transduction in the Pacinian corpuscles involves stretch receptors similar to muscle spindles.
• Receptor potentials are initially graded, and strong stimuli lead to action potentials.
• Intensity coding uses differing neuronal thresholds and recruitment of multiple neurons.
• Sensory adaptation involves a progressive loss of response to maintained stimuli.
• Types of receptors include tonic (slow-adapting) and phasic (fast-adapting).
• Receptive fields are an area of skin or sense organ that excites a particular neuron.
• Somatotopic organization in the primary somatosensory cortex (S1) is contralateral.
• The secondary somatosensory cortex (S2) displays more sophisticated processing, including bilateral information.
• The sensory homunculus demonstrates the somatotopic organization of the brain.
• Animals have tailored sensory processes, such as whisker systems in rodents, that are adapted to their environment.
• Cortical representations of body parts, such as the hand, can change in response to use or damage.
• Neuroplasticity is the brain's ability to change in response to experience.
• Plasticity related to changes due to damage or use, and related to phantom limb pain.
• Synesthesia is a condition where stimulation of one sense leads to an experience in another.
• Techniques to differentiate if synesthesia is real, are described.
• Pain is associated with tissue damage, but it is a complex sensation involving multiple systems.
• Pain is multifaceted, involving cognitive, motivational-affective, and sensory-discriminative systems.
• Nociceptors are specialized nerve endings sensitive to harmful stimuli, and specific chemicals.
• Different temperature receptors exist, corresponding to different temperature ranges (TRPV1 for heat, TRPM3 for cold, and CMR1 for cold).
• Itch is a complex sensation with distinct mechanisms than pain, involve multiple receptors.
• The spinothalamic pathways are responsible for transmitting pain and temperature sensations to the brain.
• Phantom limb pain is a condition of neuropathic pain where the dorsal horn neurons become hyperexcitable after damage to a limb.
• Pain is not only a physical sensation, is also related to social aspects, like rejection, and existentially.
• Different methods to manage pain are described, including psychological, pharmacological, stimulation, and surgical approaches.