Nerve supply to the skin the kind of sensory inputs which project to a specific region of the primary somatosensory cortex. Groups of nerve terminals located in the different layers of the skin are categorized depending on whether the skin is hairy, nonhairy, or an exposed mucous membrane. The hairy parts of the body such as the forearm or the leg have two groups of nerve endings: those that end along with the hair follicles, and also with the arborizations of unmyelinated axons which are referred to as “free” nerve endings because they are served by both myelinated and unmyelinated axons. Nonhairy skin, such as
Nerve supply to the skin Nerve supply to the skin Cutaneous innervation refers to the area of the skin which is supplied by a specific cutaneous nerve. Dermatomes are similar; however, a dermatome only specifies the area served by a spinal nerve. In some cases, the dermatome is less specific (when a spinal nerve is the source for more than one cutaneous nerve), and in other cases it is more specific (when a cutaneous nerve is derived from multiple spinal nerves.) Modern texts are in agreement about which areas of the skin are served by which nerves, but there are minor variations in some of