mechanoreception

See mechanoreceptor.

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Ability to detect and respond to mechanical stimuli in one's environment.

A slight deformation of a mechanoreceptive neuron causes an electric charge at its surface, activating a response. Mechanoreceptors in "pain spots" (pressure points) in the skin (probably clusters of nerve endings) vary in sensitivity. They respond to a wide range of stimuli, sometimes with a reflex (e.g., a pricked finger pulled away before the brain registers pain). The structures that respond to sound (see ear), sense orientation with respect to gravity (see inner ear), or detect the position and movement of limbs (see proprioception) are mechanoreceptors. Some animals have mechanoreceptors that detect water motion or air currents. See also sense.

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▪ sensory reception

Introduction

      ability of an animal to detect and respond to certain kinds of stimuli—notably touch, sound, and changes in pressure or posture—in its environment.

      Sensitivity to mechanical stimuli is a common endowment among animals. In addition to mediating the sense of touch, mechanoreception is the function of a number of specialized sense organs, some found only in particular groups of animals. Thus, some mechanoreceptors act to inform the animal of changes in bodily posture, others help detect painful stimuli, and still others serve the sense of hearing.

      Slight deformation of any mechanoreceptive nerve cell ending results in electrical changes, called receptor or generator potentials, at the outer surface of the cell; this, in turn, induces the appearance of impulses (“spikes”) in the associated nerve fibre. Laboratory devices such as the cathode-ray oscilloscope are used to record and to observe these electrical events in the study of mechanoreceptors. Beyond this electrophysiological approach, mechanoreceptive functions are also investigated more indirectly—i.e., on the basis of behavioral responses to mechanical stimuli. These responses include bodily movements (e.g., locomotion), changes in respiration or heartbeat, glandular activity, skin-colour changes, and (in the case of man) verbal reports of mechanoreceptive sensations. The behavioral method sometimes is combined with partial or total surgical elimination of the sense organs involved. Not all the electrophysiologically effective mechanical stimuli evoke a behavioral response; the central nervous system (brain and spinal cord) acts to screen or to select nerve impulses from receptor neurons.

      Man experiences sharp, localized pain as a result of stimulation of “pain spots” (probably free nerve endings) in the skin, and dull pain, usually difficult to localize, associated with inner organs. The sensory structures of pain spots in the skin differ from other receptors in that they respond to a wide range of harmful (noxious or nociceptive) stimuli. Excessive stimulation of any kind (e.g., mechanical, thermal, or chemical) may produce the human experience of pain. Apart from eliciting this subjective feeling of pain, stimulation of pain receptors in the human skin is objectively characterized by such signs of emotional expression as weeping and by efforts to withdraw from the stimulus. The reflex withdrawal of his hand from a burning stimulus may begin even before the person becomes conscious of the pain sensation.

      Judging from objective criteria, responses to painful stimuli also occur in nonhuman animals, but, of course, any subjective experience of pain sensation cannot be directly reported. Still, the question of painful experience among animals is of considerable interest because investigators (e.g., medical researchers) are often obliged to subject laboratory animals to treatments that would elicit complaints of pain from a man. If a cat's tail is accidentally stepped on, the pitiful screeching and efforts to withdraw are so strikingly similar to human reactions that the observer is led to attribute the experience of pain to the animal. If one treads accidentally on an earthworm and observes the animal's apparently desperate struggles to get free, he might again be inclined to suppose that the worm feels pain. This sort of “mind reading,” however, is inherently uncertain and may be grossly misleading.

      The following observations illustrate some of the difficulties in making judgments of the inner experiences of creatures other than man. After the spinal cord of a fish has been cut, the front part of the animal may respond to gentle touch with lively movements, whereas the trunk, the part behind the incision, remains motionless. A light touch to the back part elicits slight movements of the body or fins behind the cut, but the head does not respond. A more intense (“painful”) stimulus, however (for instance, pinching of the tail fin), makes the trunk perform “agonized” contortions, whereas the front part again remains calm. To attribute pain sensation to the “painfully” writhing (but neurally isolated) rear end of a fish would fly in the face of evidence that persons with similarly severed spinal cords report absolutely no feeling (pain, pressure, or whatever) below the point at which their cords were cut.

      Aversive responses to noxious stimuli nevertheless have a major adaptive role in avoiding bodily injury. Without them, the animal may even become a predator against itself; bats and rats, for instance, chew on their own feet when their limbs are made insensitive by nerve cutting. Some insects normally show no signs of painful experience at all. A dragonfly, for example, may eat much of its own abdomen if its tail end is brought into the mouthparts. Removal of part of the abdomen of a honeybee does not stop the animal's feeding. If the head of a blow-fly (Phormia) is cut off, it nevertheless stretches its tubular feeding organ (proboscis) and begins to suck if its chemoreceptors (labellae) are brought in touch with a sugar solution; the ingested solution simply flows out at the severed neck.

      At any rate, responsiveness to mechanical deformation is a basic property of living matter; even a one-celled organism such as an amoeba shows withdrawal responses to touch. The evolutionary course of mechanoreception in the development of such complex functions as gravity detection and sound-wave reception leaves much room for speculation and scholarly disagreement.

Reception of external mechanical stimuli

The sense of touch (touch reception)

      Sensitivity to direct tactual stimulation—i.e., to contact with relatively solid objects (tangoreception)—is found quite generally, from one-celled organisms up to and including man. Usually the whole body surface is tangoreceptive, except for parts covered by thick, rigid shells (as in mollusks). Mechanical contact locally deforms the body surface; receptors typically are touch spots or free nerve endings within the skin, often associated with such specialized structures as tactile hairs. The skin area served by one nerve fibre (or sensory unit) is called a receptive field, although such fields overlap considerably. Particularly sensitive, exposed body parts are sometimes called organs of touch—e.g., the tentacles of the octopus, the beak of the sandpiper, the snout of the pig, or the human hand.

      Stimulation of the human skin with a bristle reveals that touch (pressure) sensation is evoked only from certain spots. These pressure spots, especially those on hairless parts (e.g., palm of the hand, or sole of the foot), are associated with specialized microscopic structures (corpuscles) in the skin. Pressure spots are most densely concentrated on the tip of the human tongue (about 200 of them per square centimetre, or 1,300 per square inch), roughly twice their concentration at the fingertip. A characteristic feature of many tactile sense organs is their rapid and complete adaptation (i.e., temporary loss of sensitivity) when stimulated. Still, in man a distinction can be made between transient and more prolonged pressure sensations.

      Relatively little research has been done with regard to the physiology of individual tangoreceptors in vertebrates (vertebrate). The Pacinian corpuscle of higher vertebrates, however, has been studied in isolation. These corpuscles, found under the skin, are scattered within the body, particularly around muscles and joints. Local pressure exerted at the surface or within the body causes deformation of parts of the corpuscle, a shift of chemical ions (e.g., sodium, potassium), and the appearance of a receptor potential at the nerve ending. This receptor potential, on reaching sufficient (threshold) strength, acts to generate a nerve impulse within the corpuscle. Among insects (insect), movements of tactile hairs have been shown (sometimes specifically) to affect the receptor potential and the impulse frequency in the connected nerve fibre.

      Many vertebrates and invertebrates (invertebrate) can localize with some precision points of tactual stimulation at the body surface. People typically can still distinguish two sharpened pencil points, or similar pointed stimuli, when the points are separated by as little as about one millimetre (0.04 inch) at the tip of the tongue. (When moved closer together, the two points are perceived as one.) The human two-point threshold is about two millimetres at the finger tip, reaching six or seven centimetres (2.4–2.8 inches) at the skin of the back. Such tactual ability serves blind people when they read raised type ( Braille) with their fingers. Closely related functions include the ability to distinguish between tactile stimuli that differ qualitatively; for example, between a rough and a smooth surface. This ability is even observable in the ciliate Stylonychia (a one-celled relative of Paramecium).

      Sensory contact with the ground below often informs animals about their spatial position. Nocturnal animals (for example, some eels) find shelter during the day by keeping as much of their skin as possible in contact with solid objects in the surroundings (thigmotaxis). Animals (fish) that live in running water usually maintain their position as they turn and swim head-on against the current (rheotaxis). Study of rheotaxic behaviour reveals that the sensory basis almost exclusively depends on visual or tactile stimuli (or both) arising from the animal's movements relative to the solid bottom or surroundings. The long antennae of many arthropods (e.g., crayfish) and the lengthened tactile hairs (vibrissae) on the snouts of nocturnally active mammals (e.g., cat, rat) serve in tactually sensing objects in the vicinity of the animal's body, extending and enriching the adaptive function of the sense of touch.

Lateral-line (lateral line system) organs

Mechanoreceptor function

      All of the primarily aquatic vertebrates—cyclostomes (cyclostome) (e.g., lampreys), fish, and amphibians (amphibian)—have in their outer skin (epidermis) special mechanoreceptors called lateralline organs. These organs are sensitive to minute, local water displacements, particularly those produced by other animals moving in the water. In this way, approaching organisms are detected and localized nearby before actual bodily contact takes place. Thus the lateral lines are said to function as receptors for touch at a distance, serving to perceive and locate prey, approaching enemies, or members of the animal's own species (e.g., in sexual-display behaviour).

  Each epidermal organ, called a sense-hillock or neuromast (Figure 1C—>), consists of a cluster of pear-shaped sensory cells surrounded by long, slender supporting cells. The sense hairs on top of the sensory cells project into a jellylike substance (the cupula) that bends in response to water displacement. The cupula stands freely in the surrounding water, grows continuously (e.g., as a human fingernail), and wears away at the top. Sense organs of this type are distributed along definite lateral lines on the head and body of the animals (Figure 1A—>), developing in the outer layer of cells (ectoderm) of the embryo from a thickening called the lateral placode. From the central part of the same placode the sensory cells of inner-ear (inner ear) structures (the labyrinth) arise. The common embryologic origin and structural similarities of mature neuromasts and labyrinthine cell groups have led to the designation of all of these organs as the acoustico-lateralis system. The nerves to all the sense organs of the system arise from a common neural centre (called the acoustic tubercle in the wall of the brain's medulla oblongata). Among such amphibians as frogs, lateral-line organs and their neural connections disappear during the metamorphosis (biological development) of tadpoles; as adults they no longer need to feed under water. The higher land-inhabiting vertebrates—reptiles, birds, and mammals—do not possess the lateral-line organs; only the deeply situated, labyrinthine sense organs persist.

      The sensory cell of a neuromast bears one relatively long hair (kinocilium) and about 50 shorter ones (stereocilia). The kinocilium is inserted eccentrically on top of the sense cell (receptor); the stereocilia are arranged in parallel rows. In about half of the hair cells of a neuromast, the kinocilium is found on one (and the same) side of the cell; in the remaining hair cells it is found on the opposite side. In most cases these are cranial and caudal side, respectively. In the clawed frog (Xenopus), each group of hair cells in a neuromast connects to its own nerve fibre; hence there are two fibres per sense organ. The hair cells send a continuous series of neural impulses toward the acoustic tubercle in the absence of adequate external stimulation. A longitudinal water current along the toad's body surface, however, selectively increases or decreases the frequency of impulses from the cranial and caudal cells, depending on whether the flow is from head to tail or vice versa; current directed at right angles to such neuromasts has no effect. The impact of the moving water moves the cupula to deform the sensory hairs. Even minute cupula displacements of less than one thousandth of a millimetre are clearly effective in altering the impulses.

      In Xenopus, as well as in other animals that have lateral-line organs, there are also some neuromasts with their hair cells asymmetrical at right angles to the head-tail axis. These add directional sensitivity so that other animals moving nearby in the water are well distinguished and localized. The postulated function of the lateral-line organs in the reception of low-frequency propagated pressure waves (“subsonic sound”) has not been verified behaviorally. At very short distances, however, a vigorous low-frequency sound source stimulates the lateral-line system on the basis of acoustical near-field effects (water particle displacements), just as does any moving or approaching object.

 Cyclostomes, many bony fishes, and all the aquatic amphibians studied have only superficial (“free”) neuromasts of the kind described above. In the development of most fish, however, a number of structures called lateral-line canals (Figure 1B—>) are formed as a secondary specialization. They begin as grooves that develop in the epidermis along the main lateral lines; thus, a number of formerly free neuromasts are taken down to the bottom of each groove. The walls of the grooves then grow together above the neuromasts. Eventually the grown-together walls form canals under the epidermis, containing in their walls a series of canal neuromasts and a chain of openings to the outside (canal pores) along the lateral lines. The cupulae are changed in form, fitting the canal somewhat like swinging doors. The canal is filled with a watery fluid. Stimulation occurs essentially in the same way as with free neuromasts: local, external water displacement is transmitted via one or more canal pores to produce a local shift of the canal fluid to move cupulae. The sense cells in the canal neuromasts are polarized in the direction of the canal.

      Canal specialization is particularly well developed in lively species of fish that swim more or less continuously and in bottom dwellers that live in running or tidal waters. Canalization has been interpreted as a case of adaptive evolution, serving to avoid the almost continuous, intense stimulation of free neuromasts by water flowing along the fish body during swimming or, in the case of relatively inactive bottom dwellers, by the external currents. These coarse water displacements probably mask subtly changing stimuli from detection by the lateral-line organs on the surface of the animal's body. Canal neuromasts are shielded in large degree from these masking currents.

      The lateral-line organs function mainly in locating nearby moving prey, predators, and sexual partners. Usually these objects must be much closer than one length of the animal's body to be detected in this way; even intense stimuli are hardly ever detected beyond five body lengths away. Lateral-line function in rheotactic orientation against currents is restricted mainly to inhabitants of small currents such as mountain brooks, where marked differences of water-flow velocity affecting the fish body locally are likely to occur. Compared to their use of other sensory functions (e.g., vision) the animals depend little on ability to sense extremely close, resting objects (obstacles) through the lateral lines. Obstacle detection of this kind does not arise from reflection of water waves; rather, the pattern of water displacement around the moving fish abruptly undergoes deformation at the near approach of an obstacle as the result of compression; the fish encounters a sudden rise in water resistance in the immediate vicinity of the obstruction. Nor do the lateral-line organs function to regulate or coordinate the animal's movements on the basis of the water flow or pressure variations along its body produced by swimming; neither do they serve for the reception of water-transmitted propagated sound waves (hearing).

Ampullary lateral-line organs (electroreceptors)

      Perhaps the most interesting specialization of the lateralline system is the formation in several groups of fish of deeply buried, single electrically sensitive organs. Such structures, for example, are found on the head of all the elasmobranchs (e.g., sharks and rays), and are called ampullae of Lorenzini. Similar organs include those on the head of Plotosus, a marine bony fish (teleost); structures called mormyromasts in freshwater African fish (mormyrids (mormyrid)) and in electric eels (electric eel) (gymnotids); what are named small pit organs of catfishes (catfish) (silurids); and possible related organs in several other fish groups. These are known as ampullary lateral-line organs, and they have features in common. The sensory cells are withdrawn from the body surface, lack kinocilia, and have no mechanical contact with the surrounding water through a cupula. The latter attribute, indeed, is typical for all the acousticolateral end organs, except ampullary sense organs, in which the sense cells lie within the wall of a vesicle (or ampulla) that opens to the surface through a tubelike duct. Ampulla and duct are filled with a gelatinous substance that has excellent electrical conductivity.

      Fish with ampullary sense organs are found to be remarkably sensitive to electrical stimuli (bioelectricity)—i.e., minute, local potential differences in the surrounding water at their body surface. In behavioral experiments with sharks and rays, sensitivity to changes of 0.01 microvolt per centimetre (one microvolt = 1/1,000,000 of a volt) along the body surface has been found for the ampullae of Lorenzini. Similar, though somewhat higher, values have been recorded from the ampullary nerve fibres. A decrease in voltage at the opening of the ampulla causes an increase of the spontaneous nerve-impulse frequency; an increase in voltage at the opening produces the opposite response. Through their electrical sensitivity, such fish can detect and locate other organisms in darkness, in turbid water, or even when these organisms are hidden in the sand or in the mud of the bottom.

      Sharks, rays, and most catfishes are able to detect electrical changes (biopotentials) emanating from other organisms. The freshwater mormyrids and eels, on the other hand, have special signal-emitting electric organs. They produce a series of weak electric shocks (up to a few volts), sometimes quite regularly and frequently; for example, about 300 shocks per second in the mormyrid fish Gymnarchus. In this way, a self-generated electric field is created in the immediate surroundings. Any appropriate object (for example, a prey animal with good conductivity in relation to fresh water) will cause a deformation of the electric field and can thus be detected in a radar-like manner through the sensitive ampullar electroreceptors.

      Some theorists suggest that initially mechanoreceptive lateral-line organs evolved into electroreceptors. At any rate, evidence of a certain double sensitivity—to mechanical and to electrical stimuli—has been observed in electrophysiological experiments with Lorenzinian ampullae. This double sensitivity has not been found, however, in behavioral experiments; alterations in behaviour indicate that ampullary lateral-line organs merely serve the animal as electroreceptors in adapting to the environment.

Other varieties of mechanoreception

Surface waves

      Several species of animals living at or near the water surface use surface waves or ripples emanating from potential or struggling victims to locate their prey quickly: examples are the toad Xenopus, several fish species, and such insects as the back swimmer (Notonecta) and the water strider (Gerris). The whirligig beetle (Gyrinus) also uses surface ripples to avoid collisions with obstacles and companions. The sensory structures involved range from specialized tactile hair receptors (trichobothria) to internally located cells (proprioceptors (proprioception)) in movable body appendages and lateral-line organs.

Water and air currents

      Special water-displacement receptors found in lobsters (lobster) (Homarus) are most reminiscent of the lateral-line organs in vertebrates. Water-current receptors also enable several kinds of bottom-dwelling invertebrates to orient themselves (rheotaxis) in rivers and tidal currents. Many predators among these animals also respond chemically, moving against the current (positive rheotaxis) until the prey is reached. In this way, for example, certain marine snails easily find their particular prey (sea anemones). Similarly among insects, the chemical “smell” of prey or of potential sex partners elicits a tendency to move against the wind (anemotaxis) until the source of the chemical stimulus is found. Several types of air-current receptors (true mechanoreceptors) on the heads of insects enhance such chemoreceptive behaviour. In flying locusts (locust), an air current directed appropriately toward the head elicits compensatory reflex flight movements. The receptors involved (groups of hair sensilla on the head) mediate small corrections in the maintenance of straight flight; major guidance, however, derives from the insect's visual contact with the ground below.

vibration reception

      Adaptation and recovery occur most rapidly among touch receptors, and they tend to respond well to repeated stimulation, even of relatively high frequency. Thus, a person can feel whether an object is vibrating; above a threshold frequency of about 15 cycles per second (cps), discretely perceived tactual stimuli seem to fuse into a quite new and distinct vibratory sensation. The upper frequency limit of this vibration sense is found at several thousand cps among normal individuals, with sensitivity being maximal in the range of 200 cps (above a threshold amplitude of about 100 millimicrons). Just as pitch is discriminated in hearing, differences of about 12 to 15 percent in vibration frequencies can be distinguished by most people.

      Vibration sensitivity is not limited to man; fish, for instance, also may respond to low-frequency water vibrations with tactile receptors. In addition, several kinds of animals have special vibration receptors. In some insects, a group of specialized structures (chordotonal sensilla) in the upper part of each tibial segment of the leg signal vibrations from the ground below. In the cockroach, the threshold amplitude for vibrational stimuli of this kind has been found to be less than 0.1 millimicron. Birds (bird) have special receptors (corpuscles of Herbst in the tibiotarsal bone of the leg) with which they can detect slight vibrations of the twig or branch on which they sit. Perhaps birds are alerted at night in this way to approaching predators; maximal sensitivity is at about 800 cps, and the threshold amplitude is close to 20 millimicrons. Spiders also use their vibration sense to locate prey in the web.

Generalized hydrostatic pressure

      Several types of aquatic animals are sensitive to small changes of hydrostatic, or water, pressure. Among fish, this applies particularly to the order Ostariophysi (ostariophysan) (Cypriniformes), which includes about 70 percent of all the freshwater species of bony fishes. The swimbladder (swim bladder) in these animals is connected with the labyrinth (sacculus) of the inner ear through a chain of movable tiny bones, or ossicles ( Weberian apparatus). Alterations in hydrostatic pressure change the volume of the swimbladder and thus stimulate the sacculus. These fish can easily be trained to respond selectively to minute increases or decreases in pressure (for example, to a few millimetres of water pressure), indicating that they have a most refined sense of water depth. All of these fish are so-called physostomes, which means that they have a swimbladder duct through which rapid gas exchange with the atmosphere can occur; many live in relatively shallow water. The hydrostatic-pressure sense can function to inform the animals about their distance from the surface or about the direction and velocity of their vertical displacement. It also appears that improvement and refinement of the sense of hearing (sound reception) arises through the swimbladder's connections via the weberian apparatus with the labyrinth.

      The sensitivity of several kinds of crustaceans (crustacean) to relatively small hydrostatic-pressure changes (as low as five to 10 centimetres [two to four inches] of water pressure) is most remarkable because these animals have no gas-filled cavity whatsoever. The mechanism by which the stimuli are detected remains a puzzling question, although information about changing water depth during tidal ebb and flow clearly would seem to have adaptive value.

Reception of internal mechanical stimuli

      Some proprioceptors (internal receptors) for mechanical stimuli provide information about posture and movements of parts of the body relative to each other; others contribute to an undisturbed course of coordinated muscular actions (e.g., in locomotion). Best known from studies of vertebrates and arthropods, some are tonic proprioceptors (serving to maintain muscle tone in posture); others are of the phasic type (serving movement); still others have a mixed phasic-tonic character. In principle, proprioceptors can be stimulated adequately by pressure or stretching during active movements of the animal (reafferent stimulation) as well as through passive external pushing and pulling (exafferent stimulation). One passive factor, particularly in land-inhabiting animals, is gravity as it acts on bodily tissues or organs. Proprioceptors thus not only serve reflex adjustments in posture and relatively automatic movements of parts of the body with respect to each other (as in driving an automobile) but they also provide gravitational information about the position of limbs or of the whole body in space. To the extent that they are gravity detectors, these sensory structures are properly called external receptors (receptor) (exteroceptors instead of proprioceptors). For receptors that are diffusely located within the body, a clean distinction between proprioceptive and possible exteroceptive function (gravity reception) is experimentally practicable only under conditions of weightlessness, as in space travel.

Vertebrates

Muscle spindles

      Well-known proprioceptors of all the four-limbed vertebrates studied are the muscle spindles occurring in the skeletal (striate) muscles; fish muscles show structurally simpler but functionally comparable receptors. Each muscle spindle in mammals consists of a few slender, specialized (intrafusal) muscle fibres that are surrounded by a sheath of connective tissue filled with lymph fluid. The muscle spindle itself is surrounded by and arranged parallel to the ordinary (extrafusal) muscle fibres. Each intrafusal fibre consists of contractile (motor) parts at both ends and a noncontractile sensory midsection that serves as a receptor for stretch (changes of length and tension). There is double (primary and secondary) sensory innervation in mammals, but the secondary endings are lacking in lower vertebrates. Even when the animal is at rest, both types of endings are active (under the tension of normal muscle tonus). Additional stretch (lengthening) of the intrafusal midsection increases the nerve impulse frequency, and relaxation (shortening) causes a decrease. The primary (phasic-tonic) ending responds quickly; responses of the secondary (tonic) endings are slower.

      The length of the muscle spindle as a whole varies with the contraction phase and the length of the muscle to which it belongs. The length of the sensory midsection, however, may change more or less independently because its motor nerve endings function apart from the innervation of the extrafusal muscle fibres. Thus the ratio of extrafusal–intrafusal contraction determines whether or not a change of length in the midsection will occur during muscle activity. There are reasons to suppose that midsection stretch remains more or less unchanged during self-initiated (“voluntary”) movements; reafferent stimulation of muscle spindles would be avoided in this way. But as soon as an unexpected (exafferent) stretch of a muscle occurs—for example, when a leg pushes against an obstacle during locomotion—the midsections stretch to produce an increase of impulse frequency. This neural activity elicits a compensatory reflex contraction of the stretched muscle, as in the knee jerk (knee-jerk reflex) during medical examinations: a blow beneath the kneecap causes stretch of a thigh muscle, stimulation of its muscle spindles, and a compensatory jerking contraction of the same muscle.

tendon organs

      Branched nerve endings on vertebrate tendons (not far from their point of attachment to muscle) also respond to stretch; however, they are decidedly less sensitive than are muscle spindles. These tendon organs produce no impulses under the stretch of normal, resting muscle tonus. Neither is there a mechanism preventing reafferent stimulation of tendon organs, nor does it make any difference whether the stretch is brought about by active muscle contraction or passively following external influence. In both cases tendon receptors respond according to the intensity of the stretch; their response causes relaxation of the attached muscle and may serve (among other functions) to prevent anatomical damage.

      Human awareness of posture and movement of parts of the body with respect to each other (kinesthetic sensations) is attributable neither to muscle spindles nor to tendon organs. The sensations are based on stimulation of sensory nerve endings of various types at the joint capsules and of stretch receptors in the skin. There are also mechanoreceptors in the walls of some blood vessels (e.g., in the aorta and the carotid sinus); these are sensitive to blood-pressure changes and play a regulatory role in the circulatory system.

Invertebrates

      Among invertebrates, the arthropods exhibit the most readily distinguished proprioceptors, called muscle-receptor organs and chordotonal proprioceptors. Both types of structure occur in crustaceans (crustacean) as well as in insects. Adequate stimuli are variations in length and tension (stretch).

Muscle receptor organs

      Although they structurally and functionally resemble the muscle spindles of vertebrates, arthropod muscle receptor organs are always situated outside of the muscles proper. Numerous branches of multipolar primary nerve cells are connected with the noncontractile midsection of specialized muscle fibres, both ends of which are contractile and have an efferent (motor) innervation. In crustaceans, the muscle receptor organ contains two elements: a slowly contracting, nonadapting tonic fibre and a quickly contracting, rapidly adapting phasic element.

Chordotonal proprioceptors

      Widely distributed among arthropods, chordotonal receptor organs are thin, elastic, innervated strands of connective tissue, stretched between adjacent segments of the body or of leg joints. The sensory endings of a few bipolar primary nerve cells, each provided with a spiny sensillum (scolopidium), are attached to the strand. Chordotonal proprioceptor organs generate neural impulses that show them to contain both phasic movement receptors and tonic pressure receptors; sometimes two varieties of each. Thus there are receptors that selectively respond only during flexion, only in the flexed position, only during stretch, or only in the stretched state of the given strand. Several kinds of insects, apart from their clearly proprioceptive-chordotonal functions, have other chordotonal elements that serve as typical exteroceptors. Sense organs of this type (tympanic and subgenual organs in legs, organs of Johnston in the antennae) may function in the reception of sound waves, of vibrations in the ground, or of other external mechanical stimuli. Many insects also have a special type of chordotonal-proprioceptor structure (campaniform sensilla) not found in crustaceans. Sensory endings of primary nerve cells are connected with thin, dome-shaped (campaniform) spots on the exoskeleton. These campaniform sensilla respond to external stimuli such as local tensions and deformations of the body surface. They function in the regulation of such movements as the beating of wings in locusts. Similarly functioning proprioceptors (lyriform organs) are also observed among spiders.

      In insects, body posture and movements of individual body parts with respect to each other can be detected through groups of external tactile hairs implanted near the joints between adjacent skeletal elements. Some function as rotation receptors or exteroceptors to detect the direction of gravity.

      Among other invertebrates, the cephalopod octopus clearly exhibits proprioceptive abilities, though specific receptors have not yet been identified. These animals, however, seem unable to integrate proprioceptive data in the central nervous system with other sensory information in learning (animal learning). Thus an octopus readily can be taught to discriminate between two small cylindrical objects (both provided with longitudinal ribs) if the ribs on one of them are somewhat coarser than those on the other. But the animal cannot learn to distinguish between cylinders of the same size if the ribs are equally coarse and if they are longitudinal on one and transverse in the other; nor can it learn to discriminate between small objects of different form or different weight. This indicates that an octopus cannot learn any discrimination that depends on sensory information about the position of the arms and suckers making contact.

Maintenance of equilibrium

      Active maintenance of equilibrium during bodily movement (e.g., in locomotion) requires appropriate sensory functions. Although many animals usually maintain their bodies with the long axis horizontal (backside up), man being a notable exception, there are frequent departures from the usual position. A fish may dive steeply downward and a man may alter his normal orientation by lying down at full length. In no case, however, need there be any loss of equilibrium. Every deviation means an equilibrium disturbance and evokes compensatory reflex movements, not only a deviation from the usual position as in most laboratory experiments.

      Maintenance of equilibrium is based upon contact of the animal with the external world; several sensory systems may play a role in this context. When an animal moves over a solid surface, tactile stimuli usually predominate as cues. It has been noted above how proprioceptors in vertebrates and arthropods can also contribute to spatial orientation; bodily tissues under gravity weigh vertically down and stimulate internal mechanoreceptors in a way that depends on, and varies with, the animal's spatial position. When they are out of contact with the ground, many animals orient themselves in space by keeping their back (dorsal) side turned up toward the light. Visual cues also can serve equilibration; for example, through compensatory body movements (optomotor reflexes) brought about by the shifts of the image of the environment over the retina of the eye. For the receptors mentioned thus far, however, equilibration is not the unique function. There are other sensory structures that are genuine organs of equilibrium in that they primarily and exclusively serve orientation of posture and movement in space.

gravity receptors

  Because of the constancy of its magnitude and direction, gravity is most suitable in providing animals with cues to their position in space. The sense organs involved (statoreceptors) usually have the structure of a statocyst, a fluid-filled vesicle containing one or more sandy or stonelike elements (statoliths). Sensory cells in the wall of the vesicle have hairs that are in contact with the statolith, which always weighs vertically down. Hence, depending on the animal's position, different sense cells will be stimulated in statocysts with loose statoliths (Figure 2A—>); or the same sense cells will be stimulated in different ways in statocysts with a statolith loosely fixed to the sense hairs (Figure 2B—>).

      Statocysts are found in representatives of all of the major groups of invertebrates: jellyfish, sandworms, higher crustaceans (crustacean), some sea cucumbers, free-swimming tunicate larvae, and all the mollusks studied thus far. Analogous receptors that occur generally in vertebrates are the ear's utriculus and probably (to a degree) also two other otolith organs (sacculus and lagena) of the ear (inner ear) (labyrinth). Statocysts (including vertebrate labyrinthine statoreceptors) develop embryologically from local invaginations of the body surface. In primitive evolutionary forms, the interior of the statocyst is in open communication with the surrounding sea and thus is filled with water; statoliths usually are sand particles taken up from outside. In a few animal groups, this developmental stage is only found during the larval phase, the initial opening to the exterior being closed in the adult animal. In more advanced forms, the liquid content (statolymph) and the statoliths are produced by cells in the wall of the organ. This specialized type of closed statocyst is found in many snails, in all the cephalopods such as the squid (except Nautilus), and in the vast majority of vertebrates (from bony fishes up to and including mammals).

      Statocyst function may be studied by observing compensatory reflexes under experimental conditions. When the position of a laboratory animal is appropriately changed, movements of such body parts as the eyes, head, and limbs can be observed. Such movements tend to counteract the imposed change and to restore or to maintain the original position. Evidence of statoreceptor function is provided if these reflexes are abolished after surgical elimination of both statocysts. Many animals exhibit locomotion that is gravitationally directed vertically down or up (positive or negative geotaxis, respectively). Geotactic behaviour may be experimentally altered by whirling the animal in a centrifuge to change the direction and to increase the intensity of the force exerted on the sensory hairs by the statoliths. Molting crustaceans shed the contents of their statocysts along with their exoskeleton. If such an animal is placed in clean water containing iron filings, it takes up new iron statoliths instead of the usual sand grains. By moving a magnet to vary the direction of the force exerted by the metal statoliths, the animal can be made to adopt any resting position, even to stay upside down. Statoliths can be washed out of the open statocysts of a shrimp without damaging the sensory hairs. When the hairs are pushed in different directions with a fine water jet, the shrimp exhibits compensatory reflexes. In this way, it has been shown that each statocyst signals a change of position around the animal's long axis; the same reaction is found to occur after removal of the statocyst on one side only. Electrical impulses in the statocyst nerve can be recorded while the animal is in different spatial positions, or during experimental deflection of the sensory hairs. Such experiments reveal that both vertebrates and decapod crustaceans (e.g., shrimp) exhibit spontaneous and statolith-induced neural activity in the lining (epithelium) of the gravity receptor.

Spontaneous activity

      The sensory epithelium of a statocyst is spontaneously active, initiating a continuing series of impulses directed toward the central nervous system (even when the statoliths are experimentally removed from the statocyst). This resting frequency of neural activity is fairly constant and completely independent of the animal's position in space. In vertebrates and in crustaceans, spontaneous activity of the left statocyst affects the central nervous system to produce a tendency of the animal to roll to the right about its long axis; spontaneous activity of the right statocyst prompts a tendency to roll to the left. Normally, these rolling tendencies neutralize each other in the central nervous system, not becoming manifest unless the statocyst on one side of the body is functionally eliminated by complete surgical removal, by destruction of its sensory epithelium, or by cutting its nerve. This intervention permits the influence of the spontaneous activity generated in the remaining statocyst to be felt, and the animal tends to roll toward the operated side. Unilateral (one-sided) removal of the statoliths alone, however, does not produce such an effect so long as the sensory cells in the epithelium remain intact. The rolling tendency of a unilaterally operated animal usually diminishes little by little in the course of hours or days, until it finally disappears completely. If the remaining statocyst is then removed, rolling occurs again, but this time to the other (last operated) side. This tendency also diminishes and disappears with time. Apparently the unbalancing effect of the spontaneous influx from a statocyst is gradually counteracted in some unknown way by the central nervous system.

Statolith influences

      Vertebrates and crustaceans have statoliths that are loosely connected to the sensory hairs by a sticky substance. With such a mechanical arrangement, the statolith stimulates the sensory cells by parallel (shearing) motion rather than by pressure or pull at right angles to the epithelium. The effects are demonstrable in experiments with fish, based on the dorsal-light orientation noted above. In a laboratory darkroom, if light shines at a fish from one side, the animal assumes an oblique position. While the fish tends to turn on its side (with its back side to the light), gravity tends to keep it vertical; the oblique position is the result. In a whirling centrifuge, the pressure exerted by the statoliths may be increased. When this is done, the fish rights itself almost precisely to the degree that the shearing force exerted by the statoliths is held constant.

      In vertebrates, statoreception is localized in the head within the labyrinth, particularly within the utriculus, one of the three statolith (or otolith) organs. The statolith is surrounded by a gelatinous substance akin to the cupula of the lateral-line organs. In most higher vertebrates, the head moves rather flexibly because it is not rigidly connected to the trunk. Thus information coming from the utriculi has to be neurally integrated centrally with impulses from proprioceptors that signal the position of the head with respect to the limbs and trunk (for example, neck receptors), if the animal is to orient its head and body appropriately in space.

      The roles played by the remaining otolith organs of the labyrinth (sacculus and lagena) in statoreception remain unclear. Their sensory epitheliums (maculae) are roughly at right angles to each other and to that of the utriculus. In view of their arrangement, it was once supposed that the three otolith organs of the labyrinth would serve to detect position in three spatial planes (indeed, the three semicircular canals do serve to detect rotation in different planes). It has been found, however, that the sacculus and the lagena (as far as it is present) can be put out of function bilaterally in representatives of all the classes of vertebrates without causing overt equilibration disturbances. On the other hand, some secondary statoreceptor function has been demonstrated for these otolith organs in all the animals from fish up to and including man.

      In the special case of flatfishes (pleuronectiform) (e.g., halibut, sole, flounder), the normal upright position in the juvenile stage changes to one of swimming and lying on one side as an adult. The eye from that side migrates to the upper surface; but the situation of both labyrinths remains unchanged. Hence, the originally horizontal maculae of the utriculi are now oriented vertically. In these fish, the sacculi (usually the major organs of hearing in bony fishes) indeed may be shown to serve as statoreceptors. At any rate, the same otolith organ may function in one fish species as an organ of hearing and in another as a gravity receptor; clearly, both functions depend on basically identical mechanical stimulation.

      As receptors belonging to the acousticolateralis system, the otolith organs of vertebrates have hair cells of the same type that is found in lateral-line neuromasts. Under the electron microscope, the sensory hair cells show a pattern of polarization throughout the macula, indicating the directions in which the shearing otolith should have an activating or an inhibiting influence. Results of physiological investigations thus far performed agree well with these deductions.

      Among the invertebrates, most statocyst research has been done with such decapod crustaceans as lobsters (lobster). The working mechanism of their statocysts conforms with the physiological principles of vertebrate statoreception discussed above. The results of electrophysiological investigations support the conclusions drawn from behavioral observations. In some crustacean statocysts (for example, in the lobster, Homarus), special statoreceptors are found that signal the same bodily position differently, depending on the direction of movement through which it was reached (hysteresis effect). The part played by the statocyst in equilibration has been investigated in several other invertebrate groups, among them jellyfish, sandworms, and such mollusks as scallops, common snails, sea hare, and octopus. Each sensory cell from the vertical macula in a statocyst of the octopus bears up to 200 kinocilia, and all the cilia of each cell are polarized in the same direction. On the macula as a whole, there is a radiating polarization pattern, the activating direction pointing everywhere from the centre to the margin. Compensatory eye reflexes resulting from tilting the animal head down or head up around a transverse axis reveal a hysteresis effect. After unilateral-statocyst removal, mollusks do not tend to roll toward the operated side (as do vertebrates and crustaceans) but toward the side of the remaining statocyst.

      The almost complete absence of statocysts in insects is remarkable in view of evidence that many of them have a high degree of sensitivity to the direction of gravity. Receptors involved are specialized tufts of tactile hairs at the external body surface; in the honeybee, such groups of hairs are notably found between head and thorax and between thorax and abdomen. The adaptive function of these static (gravity) receptors becomes manifest in the honeybee “dance language” performed on a vertical comb in the hive. The angle between the dancing bee and the perpendicular seems to direct other bees to sources of nectar and pollen.

Rotation receptors

      In addition to having tonic statoreceptors (signalling position with respect to gravity), several groups of animals have purely phasic rotation receptors that respond only to angular acceleration or deceleration, as produced on a turntable. Vertebrates, cephalopods (e.g., squid), and decapod crustaceans (e.g., lobsters) have special rotation receptors at the inner surface of the fluid-filled organ of equilibrium (labyrinth or statocyst). This fluid lags inertially with respect to the wall of the organ at the onset and arrest of every rotation. Among crustaceans, such as crabs or lobsters, the rotation receptors incorporate relatively long, delicate hairs that extend more or less at right angles to the wall freely into the statocyst fluid. The hairs respond quickly to fluid motion, swaying around their point of attachment and returning slowly through their elasticity to resting position. Their stimulation causes compensatory reflexes of the eyestalks or of the whole animal.

      Eyestalk reflexes can be readily observed when a blinded, legless crab is rotated while flat on a turntable. These reflex movements are called nystagmus. At the onset of rotation to the right, both eyestalks move at about the rotation rate to the left by way of compensation until they reach their maximal deviation. In most cases, one or more jerky movements of the eyestalks in the opposite direction are observed per rotation during the initial period (quick, restoring nystagmus phases). In general, however, the eyestalks remain deviated opposite to the direction of rotation for several revolutions of the turntable. During prolonged constant-velocity rotation, the crab's eyestalks return to their symmetrical position; at this point, inertial lag in the statolymph is reduced to the degree that the fluid finally rotates together with the statocyst wall. Sudden arrest of the turntable under these circumstances causes afternystagmus: the eyestalks move promptly to the right (at about the same velocity as they moved to the left at the onset of rotation) until their maximal deviation toward this side is reached. After a quick jerk in the opposite direction, the eyes continue their slow movement to the right, and in this way as many as three or more after nystagmus jerks may occur with decreasing intensity. Such aftereffects may last many seconds, but finally the eyestalks return slowly to their symmetrical position. All of these nystagmic effects from such horizontal rotation are abolished in a blinded crab, however, after bilateral elimination of the long, delicate statocyst hairs by their denervation or by cauterization of the hair bases.

      In vertebrates, rotation reception occurs within the labyrinth. Each labyrinth has three semicircular canals arranged in planes at right angles to each other; the canals communicate with the utriculus. One end of each canal is widened into an ampulla, and the sensory cells (hair cells) are arranged in a row on a ridge (crista) of the ampullar wall. The crista is oriented at right angles to the plane of the canal, and the extended hairs of its sensory cells are imbedded in a jellylike cupula that reaches to the opposite wall of the ampulla. Endolymph displacement through a canal makes the cupula move aside, as if it were a swinging door. In vertebrates, the inertial lag of the endolymph at the onset of rotation is very brief, the fluid catching up with the angular velocity of the labyrinth within a fraction of a second. An ampulla with its crista and cupula is reminiscent of a lateral-line canal neuromast, except that all of the hair cells of a crista are polarized in the same direction. In the cristae belonging to the vertical semicircular canals the kinocilium is implanted at the side facing the canal; in the horizontal cristae all of the sensory cells are polarized toward the opposite side (facing the utriculus). This structural arrangement is in keeping with differences between the vertical and the horizontal canals observed in behavioral and electrophysiological experiments.

      A turn of the animal's head around the vertical axis to the left increases the neural-impulse frequency (activation) in the left horizontal crista; a turn of the head to the right causes a frequency decrease (inhibition). Opposite effects occur at the same time in the right horizontal crista. Recordings from the different crista nerves, while the animal is being rotated successively around all three major body axes, show the horizontal crista to respond only to rotation of the animal around its vertical axis; the vertical cristae, however, respond to rotation about all three axes. Behavioral data (compensatory eye reflexes) provide similar results, except that the eyes fail to exhibit an observable response associated with the vertical semicircular canals during rotation around the vertical axis. Stimulation of the vertical cristae under these circumstances gives rise to the simultaneous contraction of antagonistic pairs of eye muscles; hence the absence of a compensatory eye rotation.

      In decapod crustaceans (crustacean), particularly crabs, the statocyst is anything but a simple spherical vesicle; it has a very complicated shape with several curved invaginations and projections. In a small corner in the lowest (most ventral) part of the crab statocyst, a cluster of minuscule sand particles (statoliths) is found in contact with specialized (hooked) hairs. Apart from these hook-hair gravity receptors, there is a single, slightly curved row of relatively straight “thread” hairs atop an oval invagination in the middle of the lower statocyst wall. These hairs are the rotation receptors described above in the blinded crab revolving on a turntable. Bilateral elimination of the thread hairs alters the reflexes of the eyestalks. Instead of reacting immediately, at the very onset of rotation, in the absence of thread hairs on both sides, the eyes initially maintain their symmetrical position. They start their compensatory movement only after rotation has begun or at the end of rotation after the animal has reached a new, steady position. Furthermore, the velocity of this compensatory eye movement seems to be independent of the rate of angular acceleration or deceleration. The delayed nature of the response suggests that loss of rotation sensitivity about horizontal axes results from thread-hair elimination.

      That the thread hairs are indeed responsive to rotation about all three major body axes is supported by a number of observations. Bilateral elimination of the impulses from the statolith hairs (position receptors) by selective nerve cutting, for example, does not affect the animal's response to rotation around the vertical axis. Despite their loss of impulses from position receptors, crabs subjected to angular acceleration or deceleration about either horizontal axis exhibit the normal compensatory eyestalk reflexes at the very onset of rotation. When a new (inclined) position of the animal is maintained, the eyestalks again become symmetrical, although complete return to symmetry may require several minutes. On the other hand, when both thread hairs and statolith hairs are eliminated, all such rotation and position reflexes of the eyestalks and related aftereffects are abolished. After unilateral elimination of the thread hairs or removal of one entire statocyst in a blinded crab, both eyes still react to rotation around the vertical axis in both directions. When electrical recordings are made of the activity of the primary sensory neurons innervating the thread hairs, similar results are obtained, the receptors responding only to angular acceleration and deceleration. They are spontaneously active, and the neural response to rotation that is superimposed upon the spontaneous background consists of a coded sequence of impulse-frequency increases and decreases. The same reception unit responds to acceleration about all three major axes.

      The statocysts of cephalopods (nautilus, squid, octopus) rival the complexity of crab statocysts. In addition to the perpendicular macula with its statolith (for gravity reception), the octopus has three cristae (containing many hair cells with two-directionally polarized kinocilia) arranged approximately at right angles to each other. Rotation (turntable) experiments and surgical removal of statocyst receptors have shown that the octopus cristae function as rotation receptors. Nystagmus and afternystagmus persist almost unchanged after unilateral statocyst removal, but they are completely abolished after the additional removal of the second statocyst in a blinded octopus. In the cuttlefish (Sepia), the statocyst is structurally even more complicated; besides three cristae, it has three maculae (statolith organs) also arranged in different planes.

      Rotation receptors of a different type are found in some groups of insects. Dragonflies (dragonfly) (for example, Aeshna) have external hair receptors between the head and thorax. If a gust of wind turns the animal around its long axis during flight, the relatively heavy head lags with respect to the thorax. The resulting stimulation of the hair receptors in the neck region elicits compensatory flight reflexes and restores the insect to a normal position. These receptors do not respond to static head displacements. In the Diptera (dipteran) (true flies), the posterior knobbed “wings” (halteres) serve as flight stabilizing rotation receptors. During flight, the halteres beat in a vertical plane, synchronously with the forewings. Rotational instability is gyroscopically counteracted by the beating action. Receptors (proprioception) are campaniform sensilla at the base of the haltere.

Sven Dijkgraaf

Additional Reading

John Field (ed.), Handbook of Physiology, section 1, Neurophysiology, 3 vol. (1959–60), chapters on nonphotic receptors, posture and locomotion, vestibular mechanisms, initiation of impulses at receptors, touch and kinesis, and pain; J.D. Carthy and G.E. Newell (eds.), Invertebrate Receptors (1968), chapters on mollusk statocysts, invertebrate proprioceptors, chordotonal organs, and mechanoreceptive transduction; P.H. Cahn (ed.), Lateral Line Detectors (1967), contributions of 35 investigators; M.J. Cohen and S. Dijkgraaf, “Mechanoreception,” in T.H. Waterman (ed.), The Physiology of Crustacea, vol. 2 (1961); S. Dijkgraaf, “The Functioning and Significance of the Lateral-Line Organs,” Biol. Rev., 38:51–105 (1963); E. von Holst, “Die Arbeitsweise des Statolithenapparates bei Fischen,” Z. Vergl. Physiol., 32:60–120 (1950), a classical study on statoreception in the labyrinth; I.P. Howard and W.B. Templeton, Human Spatial Orientation (1966), extensive coverage of the regulation of body posture; O. Lowenstein, “Labyrinth and Equilibrium,” pp. 60–82 in Physiological Mechanisms in Animal Behaviour, in Symp. Soc. Exp. Biol., no. 4 (1950); D. Mellon, The Physiology of Sense Organs (1968); C.L. Prosser and F.A. Brown, Comparative Animal Physiology, 2nd ed. (1961), a textbook survey of mechanoreception and equilibrium; A.V.S. de Reuck and J. Knight (eds.), Myotatic, Kinesthetic, and Vestibular Mechanisms (1967), deals primarily with mammals; J. Schwartzkopff, “Mechanoreception,” in M. Rockstein (ed.), The Physiology of Insecta, vol. 1 (1964).Sven Dijkgraaf

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