Touch receptors
Receptores cutis · Hmatové receptory
Sense organs
Looks like
Microscopic nerve endings in the dermis — some bare, some in tiny capsules — densest in the fingertips, lips and tongue.
What it does
Sense light touch, pressure, vibration, stretch, heat, cold and pain.
Keeping it well
Diabetes and some vitamin deficiencies dull them, starting in the feet. Numb feet should be checked daily for wounds that cannot be felt.
Related conditions
- Acne vulgaris
- Alopecia (androgenetic & areata)
- Atopic dermatitis (eczema)
- Body dysmorphic disorder
- Boils and folliculitis
- Bullous pemphigoid
- Burns
- Candida & fungal infection
- Cellulitis
- Chickenpox (varicella)
- Chilblains (pernio)
- Cold sores (herpes simplex)
- Contact dermatitis
- Endemic fungal infections (histoplasmosis, coccidioidomycosis)
- Hand, foot and mouth disease
- Heat exhaustion & heatstroke
- Hidradenitis suppurativa
- Hyperhidrosis
- Hypermobility and Ehlers–Danlos syndromes
- Hypothermia & frostbite
- Infantile haemangioma (strawberry mark)
- Kaposi sarcoma
- Keloid & hypertrophic scars
- Leishmaniasis
- Leprosy (Hansen's disease)
- Lichen planus
- Lichen sclerosus
- Lyme disease
- Mast cell activation & mastocytosis
- Measles
- Melanoma
- Melasma
- Mpox (monkeypox)
- MRSA and resistant staph infection
- Necrotising fasciitis
- Onchocerciasis (river blindness)
- Parvovirus B19 (fifth disease)
- Pilonidal sinus
- Pressure ulcers & chronic wounds
- Psoriasis
- Psoriatic arthritis
- Radiation injury
- Rosacea
- Roseola (sixth disease)
- Rubella (German measles)
- Scabies & lice
- Scarlet fever
- Scrub typhus & rickettsial infections
- Seborrhoeic dermatitis & dandruff
- Shingles (herpes zoster)
- Skin cancer (basal cell & squamous cell)
- Stevens–Johnson syndrome / toxic epidermal necrolysis
- Sun damage & actinic keratosis
- Systemic lupus erythematosus
- Systemic sclerosis (scleroderma)
- Toxic shock syndrome
- Urticaria & angioedema
- Vitamin D deficiency
- Vitiligo
- Warts, molluscum and skin infections