BDC #18 - Proprioception: helps you to locate your body part in the dark

After reading these sentence, try to do it.

Close your eyes, and touch your nose, your ears, your eyebrows, your elbow, your knee. Can you locate it right? Now, still by closing your eyes, ask your friend to touch your body part, and try to tell, which part they touched you. Can you recognize it right?

You would say, "Of course, how could I mistake my own body?" 

Then, what is the thing that actually helps you to recognize your own body part? 

It is called Proprioception, derived from the Latin words proprius means "own's body" and perception. In difficult words, it is defined as the unconscious perception of movement and spatial orientation arising from stimuli within the body itself.

It is commonly know that there are five common senses that are discussed and learned from an early age: sight, hearing, taste, touch, and smell. The conscious part of the brain is very aware of these senses. It voluntarily and automatically checks all the necessary information obtained by these senses in order to experience the environment. However, there are other equally important sensory systems set up that are essential for normal body functioning, but these are not so easily recognized by the conscious part of the brain, because the nervous system keeps the input unconscious. This is where the proprioception plays it part. Proprioception, can also referred as the sixth sense (not realted to magical things, OK), was developed by the nervous system to keep in track the unconscious input and control the different parts of the body. 

An example that enables one to best understand this sensory system is one showing what happens if this sensory system is no longer there. Ian Waterman lost his sixth sense along with the ability to feel light touch when a virus killed the necessary nerves. He still has all the nerves to control muscle movement but totally has no feedback from the outside world about where his limbs were except that obtained by sight. A normal person is able to move a finger, knowing where and what the finger is doing, with little effort. Without proprioception, the brain cannot feel what the finger is doing, and the process must be carried out in more conscious and calculated steps. The person must use vision to compensate for the lost feedback on the progress of the finger; and the conscious brain must voluntarily and consciously tell the finger what to do while watching the feedback   

 There are two important components of proprioception. The first one is Kinesthesia; is the awareness of the position and movement of the parts of the body using sensory organs, which are known as proprioceptors (receptors for proprioception), in joints and muscles. The second one is Joint Position Sense (JPS), which helps to determine the accuracy of joint–angle replication. These two factors work together to build our proprioception. Kinesthesia is a key component in muscle memory and hand-eye coordination, and training can improve this sense; meanwhile JPS helps to locate our own body part to balance the reaction of the sense in muscles.

With the sense of proprioception, our lives are made less complicated, and we are given the ability to learn and utilize many movement patterns freeing the conscious brain to focus awareness on new tasks and thoughts.

So, appreciate our instinct and reflexes more !!!