Exam 8: General Principles of Sensory Processing, Touch, and Pain

Discuss the kind of information that a sensory system should extract from environmental energy in order for an organism to behave adaptively, and outline the basic features of the sensory systems that we find across species.

Which statement best describes the effect of naloxone treatment on patients who have received the placebo in pain control experiments?

Which statement(s) about the Pacinian corpuscle is(are) true?

The _______ of a sensory neuron is the stimulus region that causes the cell to alter its firing rate.

Grasshopper mice _______ and laboratory mice _______ in response to the scorpion toxin.

What percent of the general population is estimated to have some form of synesthesia?

Write a coherent and informative paragraph incorporating each of the following terms or concepts: primary somatosensory cortex; secondary somatosensory cortex; map; plasticity; disuse.

Fast-adapting tactile receptors that mediate most of our ability to perceive form are called

The threshold of mechanical stimuli that will stimulate a fast-adapting Meissner's corpuscle is

Discuss phantom limb pain and give at least one example of a therapy that may help to alleviate it.

Lips swell when we eat too much spicy food because _______ causes mast cells to release histamine.

Give an overview of the hierarchical organization of the sensory centers of the CNS, ranging from the general features of sensory receptive fields to somatosensory cortical representations of the body, the coordination of inputs from different sensory modalities, and the role of attentional processes.

In monkeys trained to maintain one-finger contact with a moving object to obtain a food reward, which change was found in the cortical representations of the fingers?

The receptive fields of _______ are large and have vague borders.

Descending fibers from the brainstem directly _______ dorsal horn cells that transmit _______ information.

The drug _______ blocks at least part of the analgesic effect of acupuncture.

Pain may provide important evolutionary _______ advantages in protecting the organism from physical harm.

Morphine's effects are mediated primarily by _______ opiate receptors.

Describe the mechanisms of the nervous system that function to modulate pain perception, and discuss some of the techniques that we employ to maximize this relief.

Refer to the figure. Which letter indicates the location of a receptor that would provide the signal to this person that she is holding a mug in her hand?