Final answer:
The sensory information from a bee sting on the right thumb is transmitted through the central nervous system to the thalamus, then to the somatosensory cortex in the postcentral gyrus of the parietal lobe, specifically in the left hemisphere of the brain.
Step-by-step explanation:
If you feel a bee sting in your right thumb, sensory information about the sting, such as pain and touch, would be transmitted from the sensory neurons in the skin of your thumb to your central nervous system. This nociception begins with the free nerve endings in the skin that detect the pain caused by the sting. The signal would travel up through the nerves in your arm and into the spinal cord. From there, the signal would ascend through the brain stem and is eventually routed to the thalamus, where all sensory signals, except those from the olfactory system, are first processed centrally.
Once the sensory signal leaves the thalamus, it goes to the somatosensory cortex, which is located in the postcentral gyrus of the parietal lobe. The somatosensory cortex is responsible for processing sensory information and creating the conscious perception of the bee sting. Specifically, since the thumb is on the right side of the body, the information would be processed in the left hemisphere of the brain due to the contralateral nature of sensory processing. In terms of the somatosensory cortex representation, the hands have a large representation on the sensory homunculus, which demonstrates the amount of cortical area devoted to processing sensory input from various body parts.