Lecture 13

Sensation and touching in your head (pt2)

continued

Prof. André Fenton ([email protected])

Dr. Darryl Watkins [email protected]

Alisha Ahmed [email protected]
Luke Arend [email protected]
• WHAT SOMATOSENSATIONS DO WE
PERCEIVE?

• Light touch
• Pressure, flutter, vibration, direction
• Temperature
• hot and cold
• Pain Refers to sensory signals sent from the body to the brain, informing us of
tissue damage or potential harm.

• ascending information
• descending modulation
Involves the brain's ability to regulate pain perception, either amplifying or
suppressing it through pathways like the release of endorphins or interaction with pain
-modulating centers.
How pain gets to the brain…
anterolateral
spinothalamic
 Pain and Nociception

•Different types of pain

• fast prickling pain, slow pain

•Anesthetics and pressure block of pain

•People without pain afferents or central

pathways (Nav1.7 channel deletion)

•Modulation of pain
• descending pathways and natural opiates
Structure- Function: Fiber diameter and nerve function
 SUMMARY

• Nociceptors are peripheral receptors that respond

to painful stimuli.
• Free nerve endings in the dermis (skin) have
specialized receptor proteins.
• The free nerve endings respond to temperature
changes, chemicals, and pain.
• Free nerve endings synapse on spinal neurons in
the dorsal horn.
• The anterolateral, or spinothalamic, system
transmits the sensations of pain and temperature
(different from dorsal column pathway for touch)
• Pain information crosses the midline in the spinal
cord, before ascending to the thalamus.
• BRAIN AREAS SPECIALIZED FOR PAIN PERCEPTION

• The periaqueductal gray (PAG) is an area in the

midbrain involved in pain perception; stimulation of
the PAG produces potent analgesia.
• - Pain information can be blocked by a gating
action in the spinal cord.
• Pain information is integrated in the cingulate cortex.
• -Different subregions of the cingulate cortex are
activated if a person is experiencing the pain or is
empathizing with another.
How pain gets to the brain… the ascending pathway
How the brain modulates pain… the descending pathway

seen this
‘gating’ circuitry
before?
 Lecture 14
Seeing and perceiving: how brains see 1

Prof. André Fenton ([email protected])

Dr. Darryl Watkins [email protected]

Alisha Ahmed [email protected]
Luke Arend [email protected]
 Today’s important idea:

The visual system is designed to

respond to changes in light
Our brains make us see what we need
to see
 LEARNING OBJECTIVES

• Describe the visual system from eye to brain

• Understand the structural and functional organization of the eye

and retina

• Understand how visual receptive fields are organized and change

at different levels of the visual system

• Understand transduction of light into neural signals

• Understand the properties of the scotopic and photopic visual

systems

• Understand what accounts for visual sensitivity and acuity

 The image of the world does not tilt during head roll tilt
Visual Stability: When you tilt your head, the visual input received by each eye changes its orientation. However, the brain compensates for this tilt by
integrating signals from the visual system (retina) and vestibular system (inner ear). This ensures that the perceived image of the world remains upright
and stable, regardless of head movements.
Input from Both Eyes: The images from the left and right eyes provide slightly different perspectives, helping the brain maintain depth perception and
spatial orientation. Despite the head roll, the brain aligns these inputs to avoid the perception of a tilted world.
Importance: This mechanism highlights the brain's ability to correct and stabilize sensory input for a consistent visual experience. This stabilization is
crucial for balance, navigation, and interactions with the environment.

image on left eye image on right eye

Blind Spot
The disappearing smudge may relate to how the brain fills in the blind spot in each
eye, a region where the optic nerve exits the retina and there are no photoreceptors to
detect light. When the brain lacks visual input from this area, it "guesses" or fills in
the space based on surrounding visual information.

Troxler Fading
Alternatively, this could demonstrate Troxler fading, where a stationary object in
peripheral vision fades over time if you fixate on a central point. This happens
because the brain prioritizes changes or motion in the visual field, de-emphasizing
static details.

Implications for Vision

These phenomena highlight how the brain processes and interprets incomplete or
static visual information to create a seamless perception of the world. The brain s
ability to compensate for the blind spot and filter static stimuli ensures that our
visual experience is continuous and focused on relevant details.

www.yorku.ca/eye/thejoy.htm
Disappearing smudge
• Humans are very
visually
dependent.

• Almost one third

of the human
cortex is
engaged in visual
processing.
OUTLINE

• Functional anatomy of the eye and

retina
• Primary sensory neurons and
phototransduction in photoreceptors
• Basis of visual sensitivity
Structures of the Human Eye
Visual processing begins in the retina, which
contains several cell types:
• Photoreceptor cells—rods and cones
• Bipolar cells receive input from
photoreceptors and synapse on ganglion cells,
whose axons form the optic nerve.
 Anatomy of the Retina
light
Horizontal cells in the retina contact photoreceptors and
bipolar cells.
Amacrine cells contact bipolar and ganglion cells.
All cell types except ganglion cells generate graded potentials
Retinal ganglion cells fire action potentials.
Photoreceptors: the primary sensory neuron

Rods and cones

correspond to two
systems:
• The scotopic system
(rods) works in dim
light
• The photopic system
(cones) requires
more light and allows
for color vision.
OUTLINE

• Functional anatomy of the eye and

retina
• Phototransduction in primary sensory
neurons (photoreceptors)
• Basis of visual sensitivity
 The Basics of Light

•The visual system responds to a band of electromagnetic radiation, measured in

quanta.
•Each quantum has a wavelength.
•Quanta of light energy with visible wavelengths are called photons.
Phototransduction: Light hyperpolarizes photoreceptors
and the signal is amplified
In rods, quanta of light are captured by the
photopigment rhodopsin; cones use similar
pigments.
Photopigments consist of two parts:
• RETINAL (an abbreviation for retinaldehyde)
and opsin
When light activates rhodopsin, RETINAL
dissociates, and the opsin is activated.
A cascade of events produces a hyperpolarization
of rods or cones.
The magnitude of the hyperpolarization
determines the reduction in neurotransmitter
release.

Remember that the visual system responds to

changes in light.
 Signal processing by the secondary sensory neuron bipolar cells

Ionotropic
Metabotropic GluR
GluR
OUTLINE

• Functional anatomy of the eye and

retina
• phototransduction in Primary sensory
neurons (photoreceptors)
• Basis of visual sensitivity
Rods and cones correspond to two systems
• The scotopic system (rods) works in dim light

• The photopic system (cones) requires more

light and allows for color vision.
 Sensitivity

1 Cones (4 millions )

More rods are

available so the Rods (100 millions)
scotopic
system is more
sensitive to light
changes.

0
 Visual acuity

High acuity Low acuity

Sensing a small difference in position Can’t sense the same (small) difference in
position
Acuity is best in the fovea
 Acuity is best in the fovea:
• High cone density
• No vessels or cells that cover it
Optic disc and blind spot
Blind spot – because of no photoreceptors
Rods and cones have different distributions
Scotopic and photopic vision have different
acuity and spatial organization

Monkeys have different fixation patterns when fixating at same targets

during darkness (blue) and light (red)
Spivak 2018
Visual field—the whole area you can see without
moving your head or eyes
Visual acuity—sharpness of vision—falls off towards the
periphery of the visual field
Visual acuity is best in the fovea; it has a high density of
cones.
Optic disc—where blood vessels enter and leave the eye
Blind spot—due to lack of photoreceptors in the optic
disc
The visual system deals with a wide range of intensities (109-fold
differences) by:
• Adjusting pupil size (16-fold)
• Range fractionation—receptors with different thresholds
handle different intensities
• Photoreceptor adaptation – the major mechanism
Two main factors contribute to photoreceptor
adaptation (ability of photoreceptors to adjust
sensitivity to prevailing level of illumination):
• Calcium (Ca2+) regulation
• Availability of photopigment (RETINAL+OPSIN)
 Watch the video

https://learninglink.oup.com/access/content/watson-breedlove4e-student-resources/watson-breedlove4e-animation-7-4-receptive-fields-in-the-retina?previousFilter=tag_chapter-07