Tactile corpuscle

Tactile corpuscles (or Meissner's corpuscles) are a type of mechanoreceptor. They are a type of nerve ending in the skin that is responsible for sensitivity to light touch. In particular, they have highest sensitivity (lowest threshold) when sensing vibrations between 10 and 50 Hertz. They are rapidly adaptive receptors. They are most concentrated in thick hairless skin, especially at the finger pads.

Location

They are distributed on various areas of the skin, but concentrated in areas especially sensitive to light touch, such as the fingers and lips. More specifically, they are primarily located in glabrous skin just beneath the epidermis within the dermal papillae.

Structure

Tactile corpuscles are encapsulated unmyelinated nerve endings, which consist of flattened supportive cells arranged as horizontal lamellae surrounded by a connective tissue capsule. The corpuscle is between 30-140 μm in length and 40-60 μm in diameter.

A single nerve fiber meanders between the lamellae and throughout the corpuscle.