Distribution of Sensory Neurons
The distribution of the sensory neurons within the skin accounts for the large and overlapping receptive fields of the skin. The size of the receptive fields in turn explains why almost any given stimulus to the human skin can potentially activate a very large number of nerve terminals. Therefore it is more likely that a stimulus caused by the prick of a needle be detected by more than a hundred nerve endings all sharing the same receptive field, than for that same needle prick to be detected by only one nerve ending.
Read more about this topic: Cutaneous Innervation
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