Eli5: How does the brain keep track of the exact stop where the stimulus or an injury occurs?

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As the human skin is pretty large how the brain accurately map the source of injury or touch and how does it make the pain or the feeling appear from that particular place?

In: Biology

2 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

Each part of our body actually is mapped to certain regions within the somatosensory cortex (a slice near the middle of the brain). It’s just the result of a bunch of nerve endings within our dermis / throughout the body in general.

Highly recommend looking up a brain homunculus. They map out what parts of the cortex correspond to what parts of your body. It’s very interesting and makes a lot of sense seeing how something like your hands take up a larger percentage of the cortical area compared to something like your trunk.

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