Sensory innervation of the hairy skin (light- and electronmicroscopic study

The sense of touch develops early in phylogeny and is one of the most important senses for the survival of the animal. Touch organs of hairy skin in mammals include the so-called "Haarscheiben" (also Pinkus corpuscles) and all types of hair follicles with their nerve endings. The touch organs of the skin consist of a mechanical transducing component and the sensory component. The epithelium and its derivatives like hair follicles and sebaceous glands are the mechanical transducing component transmitting the mechanical forces like pressure or touch to the second component--the sensory nerve endings. In mammalian hairy skin all sinus and guard hairs and many vellus hairs are touch organs. The sinus hair is a typical example of a touch organ. All mammals except humans are equipped with these highly differentiated touch organs. The hair follicle is almost completely embedded in a blood sinus and equipped with more than 2,000 sensory nerve endings. All sinus and guard hairs are equipped with free nerve endings (nociceptors), Merkel nerve endings (slowly adapting [SA I] mechanoreceptor units-pressure detectors), palisades of lanceolate nerve endings (velocity detectors), and pilo-Ruffini corpuscles (tension receptors). In most of the sinus hairs lamellated corpuscles of Pacini type could be found (rapidly adapting receptors-acceleration detectors). Most vellus hairs are equipped with free and lanceolate nerve endings. Some of the vellus hairs of the upper portion of the body (head, upper extremity) are innervated by Merkel nerve endings. The presence of pilo-Ruffini nerve endings in vellus hairs is very unusual.