1. March 27, 2015  Journal: Write down any questions you want to go over to review for your quarterly next class.

2. THE SOMATIC SENSORY SYSTEM AND TOUCH

3. Somatic Sensory System  Provides sensory input  Touch = somatic sensation  Motor neurons located in ventral horns of the spinal cord connect directly to the muscles

4. Three pathways that carry sensory information to your brain:  Dorsal column tract carries fine- touch and vibration information to your cerebral cortex  Spinothalamic tract carries temperature, pain, and crude touch information to your cerebral cortex  Spinocerebellar tract carries information about posture and position to your cerebellum

5. How you respond to touch: 1. Sensory neurons on your skin or joints detect a stimulus 2. Sends signal along neighboring neurons to the spinal cord 3. Spinal cord carries the signal up to the primary somatic sensory cortex in the parietal lobe of the brain. This allows you to understand the stimulus.

6. How you respond to touch: 4. Then, the signal is sent to the somatic motor system located in the frontal lobe, which will determine what movement should be made in order to respond to the stimulus. 5. The plan for movement then leaves the motor cortex and travels along neurons to the basal nuclei in the thalamus

7. How you respond to touch: 6. In the basal nuclei the motor coordination loop coordinates the movement of the body 7. Then the movement information is sent down the brain stem and spinal cord to the skeletal muscles that have planned to carry out movement

8. To sum up how you respond to touch:  Stimulus detected  Spinal cord  Somatic sensory cortex in the parietal lobe  Motor cortex in the frontal lobe  Basal nuclei in the thalamus  Back down the brain stem to the spinal cord  To the muscles designated to move ** Cerebellum makes the actual movements match the planned movements but scientists aren’t exactly sure how yet