Skin sensations

• Skin

  • Largest organ in the body
• Epidermis

  • Dead skin cells
  • Produce melanin
  • Contains touch receptors
  • keratinocytes
• Dermis

  • most thick
  • connective tissue
  • Hair follicle
  • Blood vessels
  • Skin Glands
  • Nerve endings
• Hypodermis

  • subcutaneous fat
  • insulator
  • energy reserve
• SOMATOSENSORY SYSTEM

  • Responsible for all the sensations
• Has four main types of receptors:

  • Mechanoreceptors
  • Thermoreceptors
  • Pain receptors
  • Proprioceptors
• MECHANORECEPTORS

  • perceive sensations such as pressure (indentions), vibrations, and texture
• MECHANORECEPTORS TYPES

  • Merkel’s disks
  • Meissner’s corpuscles
  • Ruffini’s corpuscles
  • Pacinian corpuscles
• Merkel’s disks and Meissner’s corpuscles

  • very top layers
  • found in non- hairy skin
• Ruffini’s corpuscles and Pacinian corpuscles

  • found in deeper in the dermis and along joints, tendons, and muscles
  • sensations such as vibrations traveling down bones
• THERMORECEPTORS

  • temperature of objects the skin feels
  • found in the dermis layer
• PAIN RECEPTORS

  • also known as Nocireceptor
  • encourage you to quickly move away from a harmful stimulus
• mechanical stimuli

  • cut or scrape
• Thermal stimuli

  • burn
• Chemical stimuli

  • poison from an insect sting
• PROPRIORECEPTORS

  • different parts of the body
  • Found in tendons, muscles, and joint capsules