How do the responses to skin sensations differ between the somatosensory cortex and the insular cortex or the anterior cingulate cortex?
How do the responses to skin sensations differ between the somatosensory cortex and the insular cortex or the anterior cingulate cortex?
Introduction:
The somatosensory system comprises neural pathways responding to the alterations at the surface or inside the body and a complex sensory nerve cell system. The sensory neuron's axon (as afferent nerve fibers) links with or responds to several receptor cells. These sensory receptor cells are activated by various stimuli like nociception and heat, providing a functional name to the responding sensory nerve cell, for instance, thermoreceptor, which carries temperature change information. Other types of receptors are chemoreceptors (information regarding change in chemical concentration), mechanoreceptor (pressure or movement change information), and nociceptors (pain receptors) which transit signal along the sensor nerve to the spinal cord where they may be processed by other sensory nerve cells and then relayed to the brain for further processing. Sensory receptors are present all over the body, including epithelial tissues, skin, internal organs, joints, muscles, and bones.
The insular cortex (insular lobe or insula) is a portion of the cerebral cortex folded deep inside the lateral sulcus within each cerebral hemisphere of the individual's brain. The insulae are involved in consciousness and have a diversified role in homeostasis regulation and emotions. These functions include empathy and compassion, perception, self-awareness, taste, motor control, interpersonal experience, and cognitive functions. In relation to these, it is associated with psychopathology.
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