How Does Proprioception Work?
Proprioception metaphorically is called the “sixth sense,” extending the classical five senses to include the body. This body sense is more than just a feeling of movement, however. It is intimately tied to our feeling of muscle tone, perceptions of effort and of balance. Specialized nerve endings originate in our muscles, fascia, tendons, ligaments, joints, and some scientists even include the skin. These “afferent” (sensory) receptors perceive deformation of tissue – the amount of pressure (stretch or simply, placement), speed at which movement is occurring and the rate at which the speed is changing (velocity), direction of movement, and – when deformation is extreme – pain. Massive proprioceptive input from sensory nerves embedded in muscles and joints enters the spinal cord (dorsal horn) and is carried towards subcortical and cortical parts of the brain. Many neural pathways synapse at various levels of the nervous system, integrating all this information to provide us with both a
