Sensory discrimination

Pain is a combination of sensory (discriminative) and affective (emotional) components. The sensoiy component of pain is defined as nociception. 

Pain and fear of pain are perhaps the most powerful of aversive stimuli and the most immediately important for survival since they carry the threat of tissue damage. Melzack and Wall (1988) described three components of pain sensory-discriminative from peripheral nociceptors, emotional or motivational-affective, involving limbic system punishment pathways, and rational or cognitive-evaluative derived from cerebral cortex. Excitatory and inhibitory feed-back systems link all components. 

One of the major uses of multivariate techniques has been the discrimination of samples based on sensory scores, which also has been found to provide information concerning the relative importance of sensory attributes. Techniques used for sensory discrimination include factor analysis, discriminant analysis, regression analysis, and multidimensional scaling (8, 10-15). 

Multidimensional Gas Chromatography (MDGC) Basic Protocol 2 Sensory Discrimination of Chiral Flavor Compounds Using Gl.4.4... 

SENSORY DISCRIMINATION OF CHIRAL FLAVOR COMPOUNDS USING GAS CHROMATOGRAPHY-OLFACTOMETRY (GC-O)... 

Pain is comprised of sensory discriminative and negative affective components. Although the neural systems responsible for the sensory component of pain have been studied extensively, the neural basis of the affective component is not well understood. Recently, behavioral studies using the conditioned place paradigm have successfully elucidated the neural circuits and mechanisms underlying the negative affective component of pain. This review focuses on the behavioral studies that have used conditioned place aversion (CPA) tests to elucidate the neuronal mechanisms underlying pain-induced aversion. 

Deary IJ 1994 Sensory discrimination and intelligence postmortem or resurrection Am J Psychol 107 95-115... 

Thorndike EL, Lay W, Dean PR 1909 The relation of accuracy in sensory discrimination to intelligence. Am J Psychol 20 364-369... 

Sensory discrimination abilities manifest in the first year of life are related to the development of intelligence. Colombo (1993) summarized the literature relating measures of habituation and novelty preference to later intellectual abilities. Fixation times in habituation paradigms may be interpreted as an index of the speed of encoding features of the stimulus array (see Colombo 1993, Sokolov 1969). Fixation duration measures obtained from infants varying in age from newborn to six months have been correlated with IQ test scores for these children when they varied in age from 4 to 8 years. The correlations ranged from —0.29 to —0.63 (see Colombo 1993, Table 2.4). One study reported a correlation of —0.50 from an assessment of infant fixation times at age 11 months that was correlated with IQ at age 11 years (Rose Feldman 1995, J. F. Feldman, personal communication). 

Linster, C., Cleland, T.A. How spike synchronization among olfactory neurons can contribute to sensory discrimination. J. Comput. Neurosci. 10, 187-193 (2001)... 

This means of sensory discrimination has practical value when applied to other types of problans. The location of a military target can be based on a combination of electronic anit-ters and receivers. Global positioning (GPS) can be ascertained similarly by comparing transmission times from various transmitting satellites to a receiver on Earth. Other triangulation schemes use the same principle. 

Good Correlation between Behavioural and Sensory Discrimination... 

As was emphasized in the previous section, all subjects are different from each other in terms of their sensory discrimination skills and will differ in their use of words to represent their perceptions. Stated another way, people will use the same words to represent different sensations, or the converse of using different words to represent the same sensations. Without any time to discuss these differences, how is one supposed to make sense of results regardless of the data analysis system used With no way of assessing the quality of the information, any sensory scientist should be concerned when reporting results. 

Acute pain is an adaptive physiological response that follows traumatic injuries and surgery. It has two primary components. (1) The sensory discriminative component describes the location and quality of the stimulus. It is characterized by rapid response, short latency to peak response, and short duration of action. Noxious information is conveyed by rapidly conducting A-delta fibers, and monosynaptic transmission to the sensory cortex [10,12]. This component rapidly identifies the site of injury or potential injury, and initiates reflexive/cognitive withdrawal responses. (2) The affective-motivational component underlies suffering and the emotional components of pain and is responsible for learned avoidance and other adaptative and non-adaptative behavioral responses. 

JER Frijters. Sensory difference testing and the measurement of sensory discriminability. In JR Piggot, ed. Sensory Analysis of Foods, 2nd ed. London Elsevier Applied Science, 1988, pp 117-140. 

Kang, K. et al. Modulation of TRPAl thermal sensitivity enables sensory discrimination in Drosophila. Aafum 481, 76-80 (2011). 

---