Question

What are the five special senses? Briefly describe each sense in your own words.

Select one the five special senses. What is one example of an injury or disorder that would affect this special sense? In what way would the special sense be affected?

Answer 1

Answer: The five special senses are vision,hearing, smell,taste and touch.

Vision:

  Vision is also known as visual perception. It is one of the main special senses. The term vision denotes that ability to percieve the surroundings through the eyes. Optic nerve plays a major role in the process of vision.

Hearing:

Hearing is also known as auditory perception. It is the process that perceiving the auditory waves or sound waves from the external environment to the ear. The cranial nerve is responsible for hearing is Vestibulo cochlear.

Smell:

  Smell is also known as olfaction. It is the process by which the detection of odour or smell from the surrounding environment. It is occurs due to the Olfactory receptors present in the nose. The smell substances get attached to the receptors. The cranial nerve responsible for smell is Olfactory nerve.

Taste:

Taste is the special sense which is the sensation or feeling produced by the tongue. The tongue consists of taste receptor located in the taste buds which is used to identify the different types of taste such as bitter, salt, sweet, sour and savour. There are three main cranial nerves involved in the process of taste they are Facial nerve, Glossopharyngeal nerve and Vagus nerve. Glossopharyngeal nerve supplies to the posterior 1/3rd of the tongue. Facial nerve supplies to the anterior 2/3rd of tongue and the vagus nerve has minor role in taste.

Touch:

Touch is the special sense. Skin in the body contains skin receptors such as thermoreceptors, mechanoreceptors is responsible for perceive sense of touch. Thermoreceptors are the receptors which is responsible for detecting the temperature and mechanoreceptors is to identify the body movements.

Example of an injury or disorder which affect the special sense:

  Out of five special senses I select vision. Vision is affected due to various causes one of the main cause is head injury

Head injury: Head injury is the condition which is caused by external trauma or injury to the skull. It is mainly caused by road traffic accident or due to any external blow. Head injury affects the vision or eye sight. Due to the injury the optic nerve get damaged it leads to vision problem. In some cases retinal detachment get occurs due to head injury it leads to vision problem. Retina is the layer of eye which is used to percieve the object from the surrounding and send it to the brain. If it is dettached it leads to vision problem.