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Key human anatomy and physiology principles as they relate to rehabilitation engineering
Published in Alex Mihailidis, Roger Smith, Rehabilitation Engineering, 2023
Qussai Obiedat, Bhagwant S. Sindhu, Ying-Chih Wang
Damage to a sensory nerve may lead to inability to detect external stimuli such as touch, pressure, or temperature sensation. If damage occurs to a motor neuron that connects the brain to an effector muscle, an individual may lose the control to move a single or a group of muscles innervated by that nerve. Damage somewhere in the ascending/sensory or descending/motor pathways will interrupt the transmission of the signals. Damage to the cerebellum may lead to a variety of motor control problems including (but not limited to) loss of coordination of motor movement, undershoot or overshoot of intended position with the hand, arm, leg, or eye (dysmetria), inability to perform rapid alternating movements (adiadochokinesia), and staggering, wide-based walking (ataxic gait). Loss of dopamine-secreting cells in the basal ganglia may lead to Parkinson's disease, a slowly progressive neurologic disorder, and is characterized by rigidity or stiffness in movements, slowness of movement, and inability to initiate movement. Accumulating Huntingtin protein in the brain, especially in cells in the basal ganglia, may gradually lead to Huntington's disease, characterized by involuntary movements (chorea), unsteady gait, and slurred speech (Lundy-Ekman 2013).
Mental activities
Published in Karl H.E. Kroemer, Fitting the Human, 2017
The brain and nerves are structures of a complex communication system. Normally, it can send and receive copious amounts of information simultaneously. The brain is the control center that communicates with the body through the nerves that run up and down the spinal cord. The sensory nerves carry information to the brain about pressure, pain, heat, cold, vibration, and the feel and the shape of objects. They also carry messages from internal body sensors, for example, about positions and motions of body parts and about the related tension in muscles and tendons. This information about events outside and inside the body enables the brain to make decisions about what to do; the information loop closes when the brain then receives feedback about the results of the taken actions. Reflexes
Designing for Upper Torso and Arm Anatomy
Published in Karen L. LaBat, Karen S. Ryan, Human Body, 2019
Sensory nerves also collect sensory information from receptors in distinct areas of the skin. Individual cutaneous nerves serve the illustrated shaded skin regions. The cutaneous nerves of the hand are most important. Impairment of sensation in the superficial radial, ulnar, or median sensory nerves changes our abilities to use and manipulate objects. These sensory areas are markedly different from the dermatomal distributions on the upper limb. Knowledge of the sensory nerve receptor areas has more utility in direct application to wearable products than placement of a product related to dermatomes.
A proposed long-term thermal comfort scale
Published in Building Research & Information, 2021
Sormeh Sharifi, Wasim Saman, Alemu Alemu, John Boland
Both temperature and pain are felt through the skin and share common physiology (Krantz, 2012). Both have receptive fields that cover large areas of the skin with sensory receptors connected to free nerve endings (Krantz, 2012). Both receptors are categorized as somatic sensory nerves in the Peripheral Nervous System (PNS), which is outside the brain and spinal cord (Marieb & Hoehn, 2015) associated with conscious perceptions (Canavero & Vincenzo, 2013; Ebner & Kaas, 2015; Waldman, 2009). Two groups of somatic sensory nerves, thermoreceptors and nociceptors conduct the impulses of temperature and pain, respectively from the receptors to the Central Nervous System (CNS) (Cuevas, 2011; Hees & Gybels, 1981; Marieb & Hoehn, 2015; Ochoa & Torebjork, 1989; Waldman, 2009). Both types of impulses are transmitted to the tissue outside of the brain (Apkarian et al., 2005; Ebner & Kaas, 2015; Pribram, 2011) by lateral parts of the spinothalamic tract, which is an ascending pathway of the spinal cord (KENHUB, 2018; Krantz, 2012; Rea, 2015). Temperature and pain are processed for perception in different columns of the somatosensory cortex (Krantz, 2012; Oi et al., 2017). The final output is a perception of the senses. Due to the similarities of thermal perception and pain perception in terms of their receiving, transmitting portals and processing, it is rational to consider the currently accepted use of the long-term pain reporting method for reporting long-term thermal comfort perception.