Reception and Response in Animals: General Principles – S6 Biology Notes

These teacher-prepared notes for Senior 6 Biology are part of the coordination topic and explain how animals receive and respond to stimuli. They describe what receptors do as biological transducers and sort them by structure and by the kind of stimulus they detect. The notes explain how transduction works, including the resting potential, the sodium-potassium pump, depolarisation, generator potentials, thresholds and action potentials. They also cover features shared by receptors, such as adaptation, convergence, summation and spontaneous activity. Later sections describe the receptors in mammalian skin, the parts of the eye and what each does, and how the retina is built, with its rods and cones.