PROPRIOCEPTION
This depends on the action of numerous nerve endings (proprioceptors) embedded in skeletal muscle, tendons, joint capsules, and ligaments. These specialized nerve endings are not unlike some of the skin receptors.
They respond to stretching or compression and inform the animal not only of the degree to which a muscle is contracted, a tendon tensed, or a joint flexed but also of the rate at which these changes occur. This information travels centrally through sensory cell bodies in the dorsal root ganglia near the spinal cord and activates reflexes indispensable for the coordination of muscle groups in maintaining posture and effecting movement. (It is proprioception that enables us to describe the exact position and attitude of our lower limbs, i.e., without having to look at them.) If for some reason proprioception is disturbed, movements become ataxic; that is, muscular coordination is lost. Receptors that mediate pain, particularly of joints, are closely associated with the proprioceptors; the impulses from these travel in pathways that accompany those of proprioception to the spinal cord and thence to higher centers.
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