Our son has sensory processing disorder and was diagnosed with sensory processing disorder at age 3. I have found that understanding the sensory system and how the brain interprets sensory information can help me understand how my son's brain is different and how it is organizing information from his environment. This also helps me understand why he responds to his environment in certain ways, which also allows me to help him to deal with what he is going through!
All about the senses:
We use our senses to gather the information in our environment and to make sense of what is going on around us. We have several sensory organs which include the tongue, ears, eyes, and nose. These organs take the information from around us and send the messages to the brain. Our brain then organizes the information and can form the appropriate response to the stimuli. How do these signals travel to the brain? The stimuli travels in the nervous system. The nervous system consists of different parts including the spinal cord, the brain, and nerves. Something will touch the skin and the nerves will feel the stimuli and then it will transfer it to the brain. It is like wires which send electrical signals to and from the brain. This also goes through the brain to help the brain to respond to it.
For example, if you touch something hot, the nerves in your fingers will send a message to your brain that what you touched was hot. Then your brain comes up with a response to your fingers. This response is to remove your fingers from the hot item. This can happen in seconds and we do not even know it is happening!
Hidden senses:
Everyone is familiar with the basic five senses that we talked about above. There are also three other senses that many people do not know about! These are the proprioceptive, the vestibular, and the interoceptive senses! I plan to create individual videos and blogs for each of these senses to talk about them in detail, but here is a quick summary of each.
Proprioception:
This is the sense that tells us about our body's position. It is stimulated every time we move because we have receptors all throughout our entire body that tell us when our body moves. We have receptors in all of our muscles and joints that send those messages to our brain through the nervous system. This sense is often referred to as the "safe sense" because it produces a calming effect.
Vestibular:
This system is primarily responsible for providing information to our brain with information about movement, head position, and spatial orientation. It also helps us to keep our balance, the stabilize our head and body during movement, and to maintain proper body posture. This sense is for our movement and our equilibrium. The organs for this sense are found in the inner ear.
Interoception:
Receptors in your muscles and joints can tell you where you are in space. This is the proprioceptive sense that we talked about above. The interoceptive sense is very similar, but it is with the organs of your body. There are receptors in your organs that take in vital sensory information. Then it sends the information to the brain through the nervous system. This helps us regulate temperature, hunger, thirst, digestion, and heart rate. Here is an example: Your stomach is empty and your body needs more food for energy. The receptors in your stomach receive the information that your stomach is empty. It sends the message to your brain through the nervous system. Your brain determines the best response would be to eat more food, so it sends a message to your body to alert you that you are hungry. Then you may have a stomach growl or you may feel like you need more food.
Our next video will be about Sensory Processing Disorder and what happens in the sensory system to result in this disorder.
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