What are the skin senses? List the receptors for each and stimuli to which each would respond.

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

The skin senses include touch, warmth, cold, texture, and pain. The senses of touch and texture are detected by encapsulated receptors, while the senses of warmth, cold, and pain are detected by free nerve endings. There are four types of receptors for touch and texture. The Meissner's corpuscles and Merkel's disks detect texture, fine details of objects, movement of objects on the skin's surface, and exploration of objects in the hands. Pacinian corpuscles and Ruffini endings detect stretching of the skin and help in our perception of the shape of objects held in our hands.
The receptors for warmth, cold, and pain are varied. For example, there are at least two different types of receptors that detect different levels of warmth; another receptor - TRPM8 receptor - detects cooling of the skin; and multiple receptors are used to detect different types of pain, such as thermal, chemical, and mechanical pain. All of the receptors, though, belong to the transient receptor potential (TRP) family. Two of these TRP receptors respond to painful heat, while one type responds to painful cold. Of the receptors that respond to painful heat, the TRPV1 also responds to capsaicin. The TRPV1 receptor responds to chemicals such vehicle exhaust, tobacco smoke, hydrogen peroxide, tear gas, mustard, garlic, and wasabi.