sensory nerve
Sensation transmission fiber
A sensory nerve carries signals from the body to the brain and spinal cord—information about touch, temperature, pain, and position.
These nerves let you feel a hot stove, sense where your limbs are in space, or register an itch.
Contrast with motor nerves, which carry signals outward to muscles.
- afferentConveying toward central point
- receptorSignal-receiving molecule
- touchPerceiving through physical contact
- painBodily or emotional distress
- pain thresholdWhen sensation becomes suffering
tingle · numbness · feeling · pins and needles · impulse · fiber · ending · stimulus · skin · pressure · temperature · pinprick · sharp pain · dermis · reflex · signal · pathway · peripheral
- nervous systembrain, spinal cord, axon, dendrite, synapse
- nervesspinal cord
- Neurophysiologyaction potential, neurotransmitter, presynaptic, depolarization, repolarization
- nerve cellsbrain cell, axon, dendrite, glia, soma
- cranial nerves