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Skin temperature is a crucial aspect of human physiology and often plays a significant role in affecting thermoregulatory processes. Regulation of skin blood flow is crucial to homeothermy. Sympathetic control of blood flow to the skin involves the system of noradrenergic vasoconstriction as well as an active sympathetic system of vasodilation.
Arterioles carrying blood to superficial capillaries under the surface of the skin can shrink (constrict), thereby rerouting blood away from the skin and towards the warmer core of the body. This prevents blood from losing heat to the surroundings and also prevents the core temperature dropping further. This process is called vasoconstriction.
In physiology, thermoception or thermoreception is the sensation and perception of temperature, or more accurately, temperature differences inferred from heat flux.It deals with a series of events and processes required for an organism to receive a temperature stimulus, convert it to a molecular signal, and recognize and characterize the signal in order to trigger an appropriate defense response.
Thermoreceptors of the skin sense the temperature of water. A thermoreceptor is a non-specialised sense receptor, or more accurately the receptive portion of a sensory neuron, that codes absolute and relative changes in temperature, primarily within the innocuous range.
A glomus body (or glomus organ; plural glomera) is a component of the dermis layer of the skin, involved in body temperature regulation. [1] [2] The glomus body is a small arteriovenous anastomosis surrounded by a capsule of connective tissue. Glomera are most numerous in the fingers and toes.
Nociceptors are specialised receptors for signals of pain. [4] The sense of touch in perceiving the environment uses special sensory receptors in the skin called cutaneous receptors. They include mechanoreceptors such as tactile corpuscles that relay information about pressure and vibration; nociceptors, and thermoreceptors for temperature ...
Thermoregulation is the ability of an organism to keep its body temperature within certain boundaries, even when the surrounding temperature is very different. A thermoconforming organism, by contrast, simply adopts the surrounding temperature as its own body temperature, thus avoiding the need for internal thermoregulation.
Vasoconstriction affects flow rate and surface properties of the microvasculature by constricting the smooth muscle cells and decreasing the diameter of flow. The smooth muscle cells are able to constrict from both external and internal stimuli. This mechanism can be triggered by the ambient temperature or the autonomic nervous system. [7]