Answer:
Sensation
How does sensory transduction work?
Action potentials, or electrical impulses, are nearly entirely how the brain functions. (This is not the complete picture; there are more chemical components, but for the sake of this response, we will disregard them.) How to turn an universe of non-electrical inputs into a signal that the brain can understand is the issue at hand. Therefore, we have transducers—things or structures that can convert various forms of energy into electrical impulses that our brains and, incidentally, electronics can use.
On their cell membranes, sensory cells express a variety of chemicals. These structures serve a range of purposes, including supporting tissue integrity, acting as receptor sites, and carrying out signaling processes. The majority of these receptors react to chemical stimuli, such as those that adrenaline binds to in the heart, those that muscles express in the form of insulin and glucagon receptors, and so on. Some of these structures will, however, react to outside forces.
Almost all of these sensors exhibit the same behavior: They will adapt to physical stimuli by changing their shape:
- When activated by light photons, photosensitive pigment found in photoreceptors will distort.
- The malformed hair cells in the ear hyperpolarize or depolarize.
- The numerous skin mechanoreceptors have proteins or structures that can deform based on different characteristics (roughness, pressure, stretching, slipping, vibration).
The fundamental idea is that a suitably constructed structure will react to a specific stimulus by changing its characteristics, typically its form, which will lead to a series of events that will culminate in the generation of an action potential.
This brings to a very critical realization: Your brain's ability to determine a stimulus' identity, strength, and source is completely dependent upon which cell is firing and how rapidly. The networks that these neurons stimulate and their connections to one another then serve as the foundation for our conscious perception.
Thanks.
Eddie