Neuropathy Knowledge: What Is The Sensory System?

Today's post from sciencedaily.com (see link below) is the eighth part of a series from the same source providing readers with explanations and information about many of the medical terms they hear when researching neuropathy, or sitting in the doctor's surgery and talking about it. Today it explains the 'sensory system' and gives related definitions of other words associated with its workings in the body. Worth following the links if you have the time.

Sensory system
Science Daily via Wikipedia

A sensory system is a part of the nervous system responsible for processing sensory information.
A sensory system consists of sensory receptors, neural pathways, and parts of the brain involved in sensory perception.

Commonly recognized sensory systems are those for vision, hearing, somatic sensation (touch), taste and olfaction (smell). Receptive fields have been identified for the visual system, auditory system and somatosensory system, so far.

For more information about the topic Sensory system, read the full article at Wikipedia.org, or see the following related articles:


Sensory neuron — Sensory neurons are nerve cells within the nervous system responsible for converting external stimuli from the organism's environment into internal ... read more


Nociceptor — A nociceptor is a sensory receptor that sends signals that cause the perception of pain in response to potentially damaging stimulus. Nociceptors are ...  read more


Visual system — The visual system is the part of the nervous system which allows organisms to see. It interprets the information from visible light to build a ... read more


Olfaction — Olfaction, the sense of odor (smell), is the detection of chemicals dissolved in air (or in water, by animals that live under water). In vertebrates ... read more


Psychophysics — Psychophysics is an interdisciplinary field occupying the intersection between cognitive psychology and experimental psychology and dealing with the ... read more


Motion perception — Motion perception is the process of inferring the speed and direction of objects that move in a visual scene given some visual input. While this ...  read more


Thalamus — The thalamus is a part of the brain. The two thalami are located in the center of the brain, one beneath each cerebral hemisphere and next to the ... read more


Pain — Pain's an unpleasant sensation which may be associated with actual or potential tissue damage and which may have physical and emotional components. ...  read more


Hallucination — A hallucination is a sensory perception experienced in the absence of an external stimulus, as distinct from an illusion, which is a misperception of ...  read more


Visual perception — Visual perception is one of the senses, consisting of the ability to detect light and interpret (see) it as the perception known as sight or naked ...  read more

http://www.sciencedaily.com/articles/s/sensory_system.htm