To accurately move there is a need for proprioception, the sense of where our limbs are in space. Although we know much about how proprioceptive signals arise in the periphery, less is known about how these signals are integrated so that they can be understood in the spatial co-ordinates of the […]
Proprioception, our ‘sixth sense’, underlies our innate ability to localise our body parts in space and to know the forces, angles and movements at our joints (Proske & Gandevia, 2012). This ‘sense’ allows us to interact with our environment. For example, reaching for a cup of water requires knowledge of the exact spatial […]
The brain cannot properly control the movement of the body without knowing something about its size. However, the body does not have receptors to signal size directly, the brain has to work it out using information from multiple senses (e.g. touch, vision, proprioception) and then store it in body “maps” […]
When we are touched on the skin, sensory receptors in that location fire and send a signal via nerves to the brain, but this is not enough to let us know where on our body the touch occurred. To decipher where the touch is on the body, the brain needs […]
