The Sense of Touch

By: Quinn Natschke, Gezahegn Starr, and

Mary Long
 What is it

- Touch is a sense that is all over your body unlike the other senses
- A part of the sensory nervous system. It is a complex system of sensory
neurons and pathways that respond to changes at the surface or inside of
the body
- Touch and temperature interact in some sensors, producing phenomena
such as the fact that warm and cold objects feel heavier than those at
moderate temperatures.
 What it does

- Senses cold, heat, pain, pleasure, etc.

- When you experience sensations such as pain or heat or cold, or feel things
that are soft or sticky or sharp, the bottom layer of your skin, called the
dermis, sends messages to your brain about the sensation.
- Helps us to feel
- With free nerve endings as receptors, pain carries information to the brain
about a real or potential injury to the body.
- Just like sense of touch, every part of your skin senses temperature. When
something touches you, you feel which part of your body is touched. The
sense of temperature is observed in relation to your own temperature and to
the body surface area being exposed to coldness or heat.
Where is it

- Everywhere
Structures involved: Touch

- Free nerve endings: common in epithelial tissues and they are responsible
for the sensation of itching
- Tactile (Meissner’s) corpuscles: They respond to the motion of objects that
barely contact the skin, interpreting impulses from them as the sensation of
light touch
- Lamellated (Pacinian) corpuscles: Lamellated corpuscles respond to heavy
pressure and are associated with the sensation of deep pressure.
Structures involved: Temperature

Depends on two types of free nerve endings

- Warm Receptors: Those that respond to warmer

temperatures (25°C or 77°F)
- Old Receptors: Those that respond to colder
temperatures (10°C (50°F) and 20°C (68°F)
 Vocab
- Free Nerve Endings - Receptors that are common in epithelial tissues, where their free ends extends
between epithelial cells. Responsible for itching.
- Tactile (Meissner’s) Corpuscles - Small, oval masses of connective tissue cells within connective tissue
sheaths. Two or more sensory nerve fibers branch into each corpuscle and end within it as as tiny knobs.
- Lamellated (Pacinian) corpuscles - Relatively large structures composed of connective tissue fibers and
cells. They are common in the deeper dermal and subcutaneous tissues and in muscle tendons and joint
ligaments. They respond to heavy pressure and are associated with the sensation of deep pressure.
- Referred pain - Visceral pain that feels as if it was coming from some part of the body other than the part
being stimulated.
Signal Transduction Method

- Receptors in epidermis and dermis

- Signal is sent to Neurons (read by nervous system)
- Neurons to brain
- Brain processes signal
- “Neuroscientists still aren't sure how signals from these receptors are
changed into information..”
Works Cited
- “Collection of Brain Cliparts (45).” Free Brain Cliparts, Download Free Clip Art, Free Clip Art on

Clipart Library, clipart-library.com/brain-cliparts.htm

- “SVG > Measurement Symbol Cool Thermometer - Free SVG Image & Icon.” SVG Silh,

svgsilh.com/image/1293305.html.

- Hole, John W., and David Shier. Hole's Essentials of Human Anatomy and Physiology.

McGraw-Hill, 2000.

- Patrick McGurrin. "How Do We Sense Touch?". ASU - Ask A Biologist. 31 Mar 2016. ASU - Ask A

Biologist, Web. 18 Mar 2019. https://askabiologist.asu.edu/explore/how-do -we-feel-touch