Outline the various ways in which the efficiency of receptors is ensured.

How receptor properties ensure their efficiency;

• Transduction: all receptors are capable of converting a physical stimulus into electrical impulses. This ensures that each stimulus is registered in form of an electrical impulse.
• Sensitivity: receptors can detect even the slightest of a stimulus for which they are meant. In this way, they have a low threshold of stimulation so that even small changes in a stimulus can be registered and transduced into an electrical impulse.

• Precision: receptors are precise in transmission of information. They receive and transmit the exact information about a stimulus without any alteration. This ensures that they send the exact information to the brain about the changes in the environment.
• The transmission of certain impulses in the receptors can be inhibited. This is important because it ensures that the receptors transmit only that information which is of use to the organism it a particular time.
• Adaptation: receptors can adapt and therefore stop firing impulse if a stimulus is maintained over a long time. This is important in protecting the organism against over stimulation and also allows the receptors to record and therefore report only changes in the stimulus.

How synaptic connections of receptors ensure their efficiency.

• Convergence and summation.

Many sense cells may be connected to one sensory membrane, a phenomenon called convergence. This provides a high degree of sensitivity to the receptor cells; small sub-threshold impulses converge on the sensory neuron and summate into an impulse which can be fired in the neuron.

• Inhibitory synaptic connections with inhibitory neurons. These are important in regulating the frequency of firing of the receptor cells.