Cutaneous receptor


A cutaneous receptor is a sensory receptor found in the skin that provides information about temperature, touch, spatial orientation, pressure, and metabolic circumstances. The main four types of cutaneous receptors are tactile corpuscles, bulbous corpuscles, Pacinian corpuscles, and Merkel nerve endings, although the latter do not qualify as sensory corpuscles in the narrow sense.

Types

The sensory receptors in the skin are:
  • Mechanoreceptors
  • *Bulbous corpuscles
  • *Bulboid corpuscles
  • *Tactile corpuscles
  • *Pacinian corpuscles
  • *Merkel nerve endings
  • *Free nerve endings
  • thermoreceptor
  • nociceptors
  • chemoreceptors

    Modalities

With the above-mentioned receptor types the skin can sense the modalities touch, pressure, vibration, temperature and pain. The modalities and their receptors are partly overlapping, and are innervated by different kinds of fiber types.
ModalityTypeFiber type
TouchRapidly adapting cutaneous mechanoreceptors Aβ fibers
Touch and pressureSlowly adapting cutaneous mechanoreceptors Aβ fibers, Aδ fibers
VibrationTactile corpuscles and Pacinian corpusclesAβ fibers
TemperatureThermoreceptorsAδ fibers
C fibers
Pain and ItchFree nerve ending nociceptorsAδ fibers
C fibers

Morphology

Cutaneous receptors are at the ends of afferent neurons. works within the capsule. Ion channels are situated near these networks.
In sensory transduction, the afferent nerves transmit through a series of synapses in the central nervous system, first in the spinal cord, the ventrobasal portion of the thalamus, and then on to the somatosensory cortex.