The somatosensory area is a region of the cerebral cortex responsible for processing touch, temperature, pain, and pressure sensations from the body. The brain has three main somatosensory areas. The somatosensory system is also known as the somatic senses, touch or tactile perception. Anatomically speaking, the somatosensory system is a network of neurons that help humans recognize objects, discriminate textures, generate sensory-motor feedback and exchange social cues. The somatosensory system is spread through all major parts of the vertebrate body. It consists both of sensory receptors and sensory neurons in the periphery (skin, muscle and organs for example), to deeper neurons within the central nervous system. The somatosensory system processes diverse sensory information through specialized primary afferent neurons organized by receptor type, axon diameter, and conduction speed. The somatosensory system includes peripheral receptors and dedicated neural pathways that transduce environmental and internal stimuli to produce sensations of touch (mechanotransduction), temperature (thermoreception), pain (nociception), and body position (proprioception). Somatosensory System The somatosensory system detects stimuli that provide us with our perception of touch (i.e., pressure on our skin) and proprioception (i.e., position and movement of our muscles). Importantly, this sensory system is also stimulated as we actively move and interact with the world. The somatosensory cortex is the part of your brain that processes information from your body’s senses, such as touch, pressure, temperature, and pain. It also helps with proprioception, which is your awareness of body position and movement. Unlike vision or hearing, which each rely on a single organ, the somatosensory system is distributed across your entire body, using millions of specialized sensors embedded in skin, muscles, joints, and internal organs. The somatosensory system is the part of the sensory system concerned with the conscious perception of touch, pressure, pain, temperature, position, movement, and vibration, which arise from the. The vestibular system, which is located in the inner ear, the somatosensory system, which controls your movements and helps your brain understand what your body is sensing, and vision all play a role in your overall balance.