A transducer is a device that usefully converts energy from one form to another. Usually a transducer converts a signal in one form of energy to a signal in another.Transducers are often employed at the boundaries of automation, measurement, and control systems, where electrical signals are converted to and from other physical quantities (energy, force, torque, light, motion, position, etc.). The process of converting one form of energy to another is known as transduction.
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Transducers in the context of Sensory nervous system
The sensory nervous system is a part of the nervous system responsible for processing sensory information. A sensory system consists of sensory neurons (including the sensory receptor cells), neural pathways, and parts of the brain involved in sensory perception and interoception. Commonly recognized sensory systems are those for vision, hearing, touch, taste, smell, balance and visceral sensation. Sense organs are transducers that convert data from the outer physical world to the realm of the mind where people interpret the information, creating their perception of the world around them.
The receptive field is the area of the body or environment to which a receptor organ and receptor cells respond. For instance, the part of the world an eye can see, is its receptive field; the light that each rod or cone can see, is its receptive field. Receptive fields have been identified for the visual system, auditory system and somatosensory system.
Transducers in the context of Peripheral chemoreceptor
Peripheral chemoreceptors (of the carotid and aortic bodies) are so named because they are sensory extensions of the peripheral nervous system into blood vessels where they detect changes in chemical concentrations. As transducers of patterns of variability in the surrounding environment, carotid and aortic bodies count as chemosensors in a similar way as taste buds and photoreceptors. However, because carotid and aortic bodies detect variation within the body's internal organs, they are considered interoceptors. Taste buds, olfactory bulbs, photoreceptors, and other receptors associated with the five traditional sensory modalities, by contrast, are exteroceptors in that they respond to stimuli outside the body. The body also contains proprioceptors, which respond to the amount of stretch within the organ, usually muscle, that they occupy.
As for their particular function, peripheral chemoreceptors help maintain homeostasis in the cardiorespiratory system by monitoring concentrations of blood borne chemicals. These polymodal sensors respond to variations in a number of blood properties, including low oxygen (hypoxia), high carbon dioxide (hypercapnia), and low glucose (hypoglycemia). Hypoxia and hypercapnia are the most heavily studied and understood conditions detected by the peripheral chemoreceptors. Glucose is discussed in a later section. Afferent nerves carry signals back from the carotid and aortic bodies to the brainstem, which responds accordingly (e.g. increasing ventilation).