ANP 1106 Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: Opioid, Nociception, Grey Matter

• School: University of Ottawa
• Department: Anatomy and Physiology
• Course: ANP 1106
• Professor: Joanne Savory

Document Summary

Pns: all neural structures outside the brain and spinal cord. Includes sensory receptors, peripheral nerves, associated ganglia, and motor endings. Provides links to and from the external environment. Activation of sensory receptors results in graded depolarizations that trigger action potential impulses along the nerve to the cns. Reflex activity takes place in the spinal cord, sensation and perception occur in the cerebral cortex. 2 general functions: relay information to cerebral cortex, shorter connections that result in reflex activity. The key to the physiological process of sensation is transduction: the conversion of an environmental physical property (stimulus) into a neuronal electrochemical property, this creates the generator potential, which initiates the first node of ranvier. Thermoreceptors: sensitive to changes in temperature: transient receptor potential (trp) family of proteins, free nerve endings with membrane channels that change their permeability (and therefore axon firing rates) across specific temperature ranges.