The Senses
“The Senses” was an in depth book strictly about why and how the senses work. . The senses really help keep the body alive. Whether it’s a smell that causes fight or flight, or a sharp pain that lets the brain know something severe is happening in or outside of the body. Readers learn that for any of the sense to be detected correctly, there must be sensation and perception functions developed in the brain. The brain detects sensations as awareness of a stimulus. Perception gives a meaning to a sensation. This is normally based on experiences and things we have learned. When the brain receives signals from the senses, the receptors must provide the brain and spinal cord with information from in and outside of the body. The first thing they should do is detect and then translate the stimulus into a signal.
The General Senses are made up of two nerve endings, unencapsulated and encapsulated nerve endings. An unencapsulated nerve ending is found mostly everywhere in the body, these nerve endings are not covered in connective tissue. Encapsulated nerve endings enhance sensitivity to the receptor and are covered in a special connective tissue. The general senses mainly deal with pain perception. It may also be separated into somatic and visceral pain. Somatic pain is normally sent from the skin, muscles, or joints, and visceral pain is usually found being transported from the chest and abdominal cavity.
The tongue houses many folds and bumps throughout their physical layers that are called lingual papillae, this makes the tongue have a rough look. Taste buds normally consist of 40 to 100 epithelial cells, and they have three major types, the gustory, basal, and supporting cells. There are five different tastes that the tongue can detect, sweet, salty, sour, bitter, and umami (meaning delicious). Certain parts of the tongue can taste different things more strongly; the tip of the tongue tastes sweet sensations, the back of the tongue tastes bitter, and the sides usually taste salty and sour. The nose is divided into the left and right nasal cavities. Both of these spaces are lined with mucous that include epithelial cells. It is not known how many smells the nose can smell, but it has been proven that it can smell flowery, estheric, musky, camphorous, sweaty, rotten, and pungent smells. The nose also smells pheromones.
Sight is an extremely complex sense. It uses refraction, the focusing of light, distance, and closeness to send the correct images to the brain. The ear is separated into three regions, the outer ear, middle ear, and inner ear. The outer ear sends vibrations to the ear drum; the middle ear then takes those vibrations and acts as a passageway to the throat, just behind the ear. The inner ear then produces everything that has been passed through the first two regions receives them as a sound.
“The Senses” was an interesting read. It thoroughly explained the senses and what their existences in the body were for. I enjoyed reading how each sense had its own job in the body. I was aware of the obvious reasons the senses were there, to see our surroundings, to smell the objects around us, to hear the noises objects and living things may make, and to feel anything that may touch us. It didn’t occur to me how important they actually are.
I believe the book was extremely useful in learning of the senses. The in depth explanations of each sense kept the book moving smoothly, but some of