ABSTRACT
Touch can be considered as one of the five ‘sensations’ (touch, vision, taste, smell and hearing) which are directly related to specific sensory organs. The body receives and processes additional kinds of information through receptors, not all of which are linked to discrete sense organs. Although the hairs themselves are not sensitive to touch, nerve fibres wrapped around the base of each hair provide us with a sense of ‘touch’ if the hairs are moved, or indeed ‘pain’ if a hair is plucked from the skin. The sensory information we receive through our touch receptors is transmitted to our brain through pathways within the body. The reticular formation has an important role in both the arousal and inhibition of our sense of touch and can filter out sensory information. After passing through the reticular formation, the information from our touch sensors is then transmitted to the thalamus.
