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Librería Elías (Asturias)
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Sensation in living beings is enabled through various stimulus detection systemswhich have evolved to facilitate the survival of the species. One such exquisite systemis the somatosensory system, which mediates exploration of the immediateenvironment with respect to one’s own body using the sense of touch. This systemcontains dynamic representations of tactile inputs and interacts with other effectorsystems to enable the organism to interact and adapt to the ever-changing environment.The tactile inputs from the entire skin surface and the kinaesthetic inputs from thejoints are transmitted via sensory pathways through the spinal cord, brainstem, andthalamus to the somatosensory cortex. Specifically, one of the pathways, referred to asthe dorsal column medial lemniscal (DCML) system enables fine tactile discriminationand movements of our body joints. The primary somatosensory cortex has asystematic representation of the body parts from head to foot in a lateral to medialorder. Similar maps of the body surface are also present subcortically in the thalamicand brainstem somatosensory nuclei. Further, somatosensory neurons work in tandemwith the neurons in the motor cortex to produce the motor output.
