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Somatosensation

Somatosensation

The somatosensory system relays sensory information from the skin, mucous membranes, limbs, and joints. Somatosensation is more familiarly known as the sense of touch. A typical somatosensory pathway includes three types of long neurons: primary, secondary, and tertiary. Primary neurons have cell bodies located near the spinal cord in groups of neurons called dorsal root ganglia. The sensory neurons of ganglia innervate designated areas of skin called dermatomes.

Sensory Perception: Organization of the Somatosensory System

Sensory Perception: Organization of the Somatosensory System

The somatosensory system is the central and peripheral nervous system component that senses and processes touch, pressure, pain, temperature, and body position or proprioception. The process of sensation takes place at three levels:
The receptor level:
The receptor level is the first stage of sensation. It involves the detection of a stimulus by specialized sensory receptors. The stimulus must arrive within the receptor's receptive field. Next, the receptor converts the energy of the stimulus...

Overview of Somatic Sensory Pathways

Overview of Somatic Sensory Pathways

Somatic sensory or somatosensory pathways refer to the neural pathways that carry information related to touch, pressure, pain, temperature, and proprioception from the skin, muscles, tendons, and joints to the brain. These pathways involve several stages of processing and integration of sensory information.
The somatosensory system is divided into three main pathways: the dorsal (or posterior) column-medial lemniscus, spinothalamic (or anterolateral), and spinocerebellar pathways.
The dorsal...

Major Somatic Sensory Pathways

Major Somatic Sensory Pathways

Sensory impulses related to touch, pressure, vibration, and proprioception from various body parts, such as the limbs, trunk, neck, and posterior head, travel to the cerebral cortex through the posterior column-medial lemniscus pathway. The pathway’s name derives from the two white-matter tracts that convey the impulses: the spinal cord's posterior column and the brainstem's medial lemniscus. First-order sensory neurons extend their axons into the spinal cord, forming the posterior columns...

Somatosensory, Motor, and Association Cortex

Somatosensory, Motor, and Association Cortex

The somatosensory cortex in the parietal lobes is crucial for interpreting sensory data such as touch, temperature, and proprioception. The somatosensory cortex, situated in the parietal lobes, plays a vital role in interpreting sensory information like touch, temperature, and proprioception—awareness of body position. This specialized brain region features an organized structure wherein neurons at the top primarily process sensations originating from the lower body. In contrast, those at the...

Motor and Sensory Areas of the Cortex

Motor and Sensory Areas of the Cortex

The cerebral cortex, the brain's outermost layer, is pivotal in processing complex cognitive tasks, emotions, and various sensory inputs and executing voluntary motor activities. This intricate structure is divided into three primary functional areas: the motor areas, sensory areas, and association areas.
Motor Areas
The motor areas located in the frontal lobe are central to controlling voluntary movements. This region is further subdivided into the primary motor cortex and the premotor cortex.

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Related Experiment Video

Updated: May 18, 2026

Applying Incongruent Visual-Tactile Stimuli during Object Transfer with Vibro-Tactile Feedback

Applying Incongruent Visual-Tactile Stimuli during Object Transfer with Vibro-Tactile Feedback

Published on: May 23, 2019

Motor-sensory confluence in tactile perception.

Avraham Saig¹, Goren Gordon, Eldad Assa

¹Department of Neurobiology, Weizmann Institute of Science, 76100 Rehovot, Israel.

The Journal of Neuroscience : the Official Journal of the Society for Neuroscience

|October 5, 2012

Summary

Perception relies on motor control of sensory organs. This study reveals that motor and sensory signals interact in a closed-loop system, demonstrating motor convergence and a hierarchical model for perception.

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Area of Science:

Neuroscience
Cognitive Science
Perception Research

Background:

Perception is intrinsically linked to the motor control of sensory organs.
The precise dynamics of motor-sensory interactions in perception remain largely unknown.
Existing models consider open-loop (motor influences sensory) or closed-loop (mutual influence) schemes.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate the scheme of motor-sensory interactions in human perception.
To elucidate the dynamics underlying perception's emergence from motor-sensory feedback.
To test a hierarchical closed-loop model of perception.

Main Methods:

A novel object localization task was developed to monitor overt motor and sensory variables.
Human participants were trained on the task to assess changes in perceptual acuity.
Within-trial dynamics of motor and sensory variables were analyzed.

Main Results:

Motor variables demonstrated dynamic control within perceptual trials, converging to steady values.
Perceptual acuity improved with training solely through motor variable adjustments, not sensory readout changes.
The observed within-trial dynamics were accurately captured by a hierarchical closed-loop model.

Conclusions:

Motor and sensory variables are interchangeable in perceptual processes.
Motor convergence is a key characteristic of perception.
A hierarchical closed-loop model effectively explains perceptual dynamics and motor-sensory integration.