Fakulteti i Mjekesise

Dega Mjekesi e pergjithshme - Viti I

Lenda: English Language
L. 5 – Sensory anatomy – Eye, Nose, Tongue, Ear.

Lecture 5. Sensory anatomy – Eye, Nose, Tongue, Ear.

The ability to detect changes in the environment is critical to survival. The human body
has various organs for this purpose. The nose senses odors in the environment and the
tongue senses tastes, the eyes allow us to visualize our environment and our ears to hear.
Each of these special senses works in concert with the nervous system to assist the body in
coping with environmental changes experienced throughout the day.

A sensory system is a part of the nervous system responsible for processing sensory
information. It consists of sensory receptors, neural pathways, and parts of the brain
involved in sensory perception. Senses are transducers from the physical world to the realm
of the mind where we interpret the information, creating our perception of the world around
us. The nervous system has a specific sensory system or organ, dedicated to each sense.

1. Vision & Eye

The visual system is the part of the nervous system which allows organisms to see. It
interprets the information from visible light to build a representation of the world
surrounding the body. Sight or vision is the capability of the eye to focus and detect images
of visible light on photoreceptors in the retina of each eye that generates electrical nerve
impulses for varying colors, hues, and brightness. There are two types of
photoreceptors: rods and cones. Rods are very sensitive to light, but do not distinguish
colors. Cones distinguish colors, but are less sensitive to dim light.
The inability to see is called blindness. Blindness may result from damage to the eyeball,
especially to the retina, damage to the optic nerve that connects each eye to the brain, and/or
from stroke (infarcts in the brain).
The eye is a complex biological device. Light entering the eye is refracted as it passes
through the cornea. It then passes through the pupil and is further refracted by the lens. The
cornea and lens act together as a compound lens to project an inverted image onto the
retina. In the eye, the iris, the colored part of the eye, performs the shutter function on the
light-admitting opening - the pupil. In bright light, the iris makes the pupil small, thus
admitting less light; and in dim light, the iris makes it large, admitting more. The color of
eyes is determined by the amount of pigment in the iris. With no pigment the eyes appear
blue; with increasing amounts of pigment the color tends towards grey, brown and black.
The cornea is the first and most powerful refracting surface of the eye. Light passes through
the transparent cornea on its way to the retina.

2. Olfaction & Nose

Olfaction, the sense of odour (smell), is the detection of chemicals dissolved in air (or in
water, by animals that live under water). Smell is a very direct sense. In order for you to
smell something, molecules from that thing have to make it to your nose.
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Fakulteti i Mjekesise
Dega Mjekesi e pergjithshme - Viti I
Lenda: English Language
L. 5 – Sensory anatomy – Eye, Nose, Tongue, Ear.

The nose lets us smell and it's a big part of why we are able to taste things. The nose is also
the main opening to the respiratory system, our body's system for breathing. The nose has
two holes called nostrils. The nostrils and the nasal passages are separated by a wall called
the septum. Deep inside the nose, close to the skull, the septum is made of very thin pieces
of bone. Closer to the tip of the nose, the septum is made of cartilage, which is flexible
material that's firmer than skin or muscle. It's not as hard as bone, and if you push on the tip
of your nose, you can feel how flexible it is.
Behind the nose, in the middle of the face, is a space called the nasal cavity. It is
connected with the back of the throat. The nasal cavity is separated from the inside of the
mouth by the palate which is actually the ‘roof' of the mouth. When you inhale air through
the nostrils, the air enters the nasal passages and travels into the nasal cavity. The air then
passes down the back of the throat into the trachea on its way to the lungs.

The inside of the nose is lined with a moist, thin layer of tissue called a ‘mucous
membrane'. This membrane warms up the air and moistens it. Mucus captures dust, germs,
and other small particles that could irritate the lungs. Inside the nose, there are also hairs
that can trap large particles, like dirt or pollen. Further back in the nose there are even
smaller hairs called cilia that you can see only with a microscope. The cilia move back and
forth to move the mucus out of the sinuses and back of the nose. Cilia can also be found
lining the air passages, where they help move mucus out of the lungs.

3. Taste & Tongue

Taste, gustatory perception, or gustation is one of the five traditional senses. Taste is the
sensation produced when a substance in the mouth reacts chemically with receptors of taste
buds. It refers to the capability to detect the taste of substances such as food, certain
minerals, and poisons, etc. Humans perceive taste through sensory organs called taste
buds or gustatory calyculi, concentrated on the top of the tongue. There are about 100,000
taste buds that are located on the back and front of the tongue. Others are located on the
roof, sides and back of the mouth, and in the throat. The sensation of taste can be
categorized by these primary taste qualities: sweetness, bitterness, sourness, saltiness.
The tongue, a muscular organ located on the floor of the mouth, is an extremely mobile
structure in humans and an important accessory organ in such motor functions as speech,
chewing and swallowing. In conjunction with the cheeks, it is able to guide and maintain
food between the upper and lower teeth until mastication is completed. The tongue’s
motility aids in creating a negative pressure within the oral cavity, thus enabling mammals
to suckle. The mucous membrane that covers the tongue varies greatly. Especially important
as a peripheral sense organ, it contains groups of specialized epithelial cells, known as taste
buds that carry stimuli from the oral cavity to the central nervous system. Furthermore, the
tongue’s glands produce some of the saliva necessary for swallowing. The tongue consists
of a mass of interwoven, striped muscles covered with mucous membrane and interspersed
with glands and a variable amount of fat. By its extrinsic muscles, the tongue is attached to
the lower jaw, the hyoid bon (a U-shaped bone between the lower jaw and the larynx), the
skull, the soft palate and the pharynx.
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Fakulteti i Mjekesise
Dega Mjekesi e pergjithshme - Viti I
Lenda: English Language
L. 5 – Sensory anatomy – Eye, Nose, Tongue, Ear.

4. Hearing & Ear

Hearing or audition is the sense of sound perception. Hearing is all about vibration. Since
sound is vibrations propagating through a medium such as air, the detection of these
vibrations, that is the sense of the hearing, is a mechanical sense because these vibrations
are mechanically conducted from the eardrum through a series of tiny bones to hair-like
fibers in the inner ear, which detect mechanical motion of the fibers within a range of about
20 to 20,000 hertz, with substantial variation between individuals. Hearing at high
frequencies declines with an increase in age. Inability to hear is called deafness or hearing
impairment.
The ears are paired sensory organs comprising the auditory system, involved in the
detection of sound, and the vestibular system, involved with maintaining body balance/
equilibrium. The ear divides anatomically and functionally into three regions: the external
ear, the middle ear, and the inner ear. All three regions are involved in hearing. Only the
inner ear functions in the vestibular system.
 The external ear (the part you can see) serves to protect the tympanic
membrane (eardrum), as well to collect and direct sound waves through the ear canal to
the eardrum. This canal contains modified sweat glands that secrete cerumen, or earwax.
Too much cerumen can block sound transmission.
 The middle ear, separated from the external ear by the eardrum, is an air-filled cavity
(tympanic cavity) carved out of the temporal bone. It connects to the
throat/nasopharynx via the Eustachian tube. This ear-throat connection makes the ear
susceptible to infection (otitis media). Swallowing and chewing actions open the tube to
allow air in or out, as needed for equalization.
 The inner ear consists of a maze of fluid-filled tubes, running through the temporal bone
of the skull. The bony tubes, the bony labyrinth, are filled with a fluid
called perilymph. Within this bony labyrinth is a second series of delicate cellular tubes,
called the membranous labyrinth, filled with the fluid called endolymph. This
membranous labyrinth contains the actual hearing cells, the hair cells of the organ of
Corti.