somatosensory system
Noun The somatosensory system is the complex network of neural structures and pathways responsible for processing bodily sensations. This includes the perception of touch, pressure, temperature, pain, vibration, and the sense of body position and movement (proprioception). It integrates sensory information from the skin, muscles, joints, and internal organs.
The term is used in scientific, medical, and psychological contexts to describe the physiological system that underlies the sense of touch and bodily awareness. - The somatosensory system allows us to feel the texture of fabric. - Damage to the somatosensory system can result in a loss of sensation or abnormal perceptions like chronic pain. - Researchers study the somatosensory system to understand how the brain maps tactile information from the body's surface.
- Somatosensory Cortex: The specific region of the brain's cerebral cortex that processes sensory information from the body. Different areas of this cortex correspond to different parts of the body (somatotopic organization).
- Stimulating a specific part of the somatosensory cortex can create the sensation of touch in a corresponding body part, even if no physical touch occurred.
- Somatosensation (noun): The sensory experience or process mediated by the somatosensory system; the collective bodily senses.
- Somatosensation includes both exteroceptive senses like touch and interoceptive senses like hunger.
- Somatosensory (adjective): Pertaining to the somatosensory system or somatosensation.
- Somatosensory neurons transmit signals from the skin to the spinal cord.
- Bodily sensory system
- Somatic sensory system (a closely related term, often used interchangeably in some contexts, though it may sometimes refer more specifically to senses from the body wall rather than internal organs).
- Tactile system (this is a narrower synonym, primarily referring to the sense of touch, not encompassing proprioception or internal senses).
- Proprioception: A key component of the somatosensory system, referring to the sense of the relative position of one's own body parts and strength of effort being employed in movement.
- Proprioception, governed by the somatosensory system, lets you touch your nose with your eyes closed.
- Kinesthesia: The sense of movement, often considered part of or closely linked to the somatosensory system.
- Interoception: The sense of the internal state of the body (e.g., heartbeat, hunger). Modern definitions often include this as a function of the broader somatosensory system.
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the faculty of bodily perception; sensory systems associated with the body; includes skin senses and proprioception and the internal organs
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