A free nerve ending (FNE) is an unspecialized, afferent nerve ending, meaning it brings information from the body's periphery toward the brain. They function as cutaneous receptors and are essentially used by vertebrates to detect pain.
Read more about Free Nerve Ending: Structure
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“I struck the board, and cried, ‘No more,
I will abroad!
What? shall I ever sigh and pine?
My lines and life are free, free as the road,
Loose as the wind, as large as store.
Shall I be still in suit?”
—George Herbert (1593–1633)
“our nerve filaments twitch with its presence
day and night,
nothing we say has not the husky phlegm of it in the saying,
nothing we do has the quickness, the sureness,
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—Denise Levertov (b. 1923)