Interoceptor

Interoceptors or interoceptors are a class of receptors. They provide on the peripheral nervous system senses information about the status of the internal body environment.

Classification

Are for the classification of receptors, depending on the issue, parallel to each other several schemes in use. They are, for example, etc. often classified according to the stimulus class in mechanoreceptors, chemoreceptors, thermoreceptors. However, can be found inside the body some of the same receptors as on the surface. Another and more of them independent system that Charles Scott Sherrington was first drawn up in 1906, it shares a after the stimulus origin. This system shows that there are three classes of receptors

• Exteroceptors. They provide information about the outside world and therefore are usually localized in the periphery. Examples are visual receptors ( photoreceptors ) as part of the visual system in the eye, chemical receptors in the taste buds as part of the sense of taste or mechanoreceptors in the fingertips as part of the sense of touch. ( Exterozeption )
• Proprioceptors. These provide information on muscle tone and posture and movement ( kinesthesia ) of extremities. ( Proprioception )
• Interoceptors. They provide information on the status and environment of the internal organs ( Viszerozeption )

While the proprioceptors are part of the somatic nervous system, including the interoceptors to ( afferent ) autonomic nervous system.

Examples

Some types of interoceptors are:

• Baroreceptors (or pressoceptors ) in blood vessel walls to measure blood pressure
• PH receptors, oxygen and carbon dioxide receptors receptors in the vessel walls to determine the state of the blood.
• Osmoreceptors regulating the fluid requirement
• Glucose receptors in the pancreas to regulate insulin levels

Properties

Since interoceptors on the structure or stimulus class ( stimulus) are built extremely diverse, can hardly give them common characteristics. As all previously investigated receptors makes its reaction with an unchanged stimulus intensity, often to zero, according to ( adaptation to stimuli). This also applies to receptors which detect slowly changing, nearly static stimuli, such as blood pressure receptors. The reaction rate of interoceptors is often low, often they are innervated by naked (not mylinisierte ) nerve fibers.

Swell

• John T. Cacioppo, Louis G. Tassinary, Gary Berntson: Handbook of Psychophysiology. Cambridge University Press; 3rd edition, 2007.
• Elliott Mancall: Gray's Clinical Neuroanatomy. Saunders, 2008.