There are many different types of sensory receptors, so let's go through some of the categories. Mechanoreceptors, or mechanical receptors, are like physical receptors. They respond to physical stimuli like pressure and physical distortion. So if I smush my finger, the sensory receptors that are picking up that information and sending it to my brain are mechanoreceptors. Now thermoreceptors respond to changes in temperature; they are temperature receptors if you want to think of them that way. Proprioceptors, kind of a weird group of sensory receptors, they actually respond to position and physical movement in the skeletal muscles and joints. And they're going to play a role in helping to maintain balance and body posture. Nociceptors, sometimes called pain receptors respond to tissue damage, and will potentially lead to pain perception, but not necessarily. Now chemoreceptors respond to various chemical stimuli, and this can come in a wide variety of forms, from the chemoreceptors in our nose responsible for our sense of smell, to receptors that sense capsaicin, which is the chemical in hot peppers that gives you that burning sensation. Now photoreceptors will actually respond to light or photons, hence their name. And you can see 2 examples of photoreceptors behind me. These are the photoreceptors found in our eyes, rods, and cones, and we'll talk more about these in just a little bit. And over here you can see some electroreceptors in these fish. These are receptors that respond to electric fields. So you can see here that the organisms use this to pick up on other organisms in their area because our bodies are electrically conductive. So here, this organism is going to sense the distortion in the electric field due to this other creature, and therefore sense its presence. Whereas an object, like a rock for example, isn't going to conduct that, and so it's not going to be alerted as it would if it picked up another organism in its area. And there's also magnetoreceptors, which, like electroreceptors that respond to electric fields, these magnetoreceptors respond to magnetic fields. Now let's actually go ahead and flip the page and take a look at a specific type of sensory receptor.
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Sensory System
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