Search research articles

ABOUT JoVE

Overview Leadership Blog JoVE Help Center

AUTHORS

Publishing Process Editorial Board Scope & Policies Peer Review FAQ Submit

LIBRARIANS

Testimonials Subscriptions Access Resources Library Advisory Board FAQ

RESEARCH

JoVE Journal Methods Collections JoVE Encyclopedia of Experiments Archive

EDUCATION

JoVE Core JoVE Business JoVE Science Education JoVE Lab Manual Faculty Resource Center Faculty Site

Terms & Conditions of Use

Related Concept Videos

Somatosensation

Somatosensation

The somatosensory system relays sensory information from the skin, mucous membranes, limbs, and joints. Somatosensation is more familiarly known as the sense of touch. A typical somatosensory pathway includes three types of long neurons: primary, secondary, and tertiary. Primary neurons have cell bodies located near the spinal cord in groups of neurons called dorsal root ganglia. The sensory neurons of ganglia innervate designated areas of skin called dermatomes.

Sensory Perception: Organization of the Somatosensory System

Sensory Perception: Organization of the Somatosensory System

The somatosensory system is the central and peripheral nervous system component that senses and processes touch, pressure, pain, temperature, and body position or proprioception. The process of sensation takes place at three levels:
The receptor level:
The receptor level is the first stage of sensation. It involves the detection of a stimulus by specialized sensory receptors. The stimulus must arrive within the receptor's receptive field. Next, the receptor converts the energy of the stimulus...

Tactile and Chemical Senses

Tactile and Chemical Senses

Tactile senses encompass touch, temperature, and pain, each mediated by specific receptors. Touch receptors detect mechanical energy or pressure against the skin. Sensory fibers from these receptors enter the spinal cord and relay information to the brain stem. Here, most fibers cross over to the opposite side of the brain. The touch information then moves to the thalamus, which projects a map of the body's surface onto the somatosensory areas of the parietal lobes in the cerebral cortex. This...

Overview of Somatic Sensory Pathways

Overview of Somatic Sensory Pathways

Somatic sensory or somatosensory pathways refer to the neural pathways that carry information related to touch, pressure, pain, temperature, and proprioception from the skin, muscles, tendons, and joints to the brain. These pathways involve several stages of processing and integration of sensory information.
The somatosensory system is divided into three main pathways: the dorsal (or posterior) column-medial lemniscus, spinothalamic (or anterolateral), and spinocerebellar pathways.
The dorsal...

You might also read

Related Articles

Articles linked to this work by shared authors, journal, and citation graph.

Sort by

Same author

The vision of Hsiao on somatosensation.

Journal of neurophysiology·2014

Same author

Multiple Factors Underlying Haptic Perception of Length and Orientation.

IEEE transactions on haptics·2013

Same author

Predictive mechanisms in the control of contour following.

Experimental brain research·2013

Same author

Patterns of muscle activity for digital coarticulation.

Journal of neurophysiology·2013

Same author

Hand kinematics of piano playing.

Journal of neurophysiology·2011

Same author

Coordination of hand shape.

The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience·2011

Search research articles

Related Experiment Video

Updated: Jun 12, 2026

Testing Tactile Masking between the Forearms

Testing Tactile Masking between the Forearms

Published on: February 10, 2016

Somatosensory comparison during haptic tracing.

Erica J Weiss¹, Martha Flanders

¹Department of Neuroscience, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455, USA.

Cerebral Cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991)

|June 15, 2010

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

Human subjects performing active sensing tasks demonstrated gradual adaptation of movement and force to changing surface curvature. Unexpected changes triggered rapid, spinally-mediated corrections in fingertip contact force.

More Related Videos

Design, Fabrication, and Administration of the Hand Active Sensation Test (HASTe)

Design, Fabrication, and Administration of the Hand Active Sensation Test (HASTe)

Published on: September 8, 2015

Intravital Two-Photon Imaging of Touch Sensory Axon Morphology in Mouse Skin

Intravital Two-Photon Imaging of Touch Sensory Axon Morphology in Mouse Skin

Published on: December 30, 2025

Related Experiment Videos

Last Updated: Jun 12, 2026

Testing Tactile Masking between the Forearms

Testing Tactile Masking between the Forearms

Published on: February 10, 2016

Design, Fabrication, and Administration of the Hand Active Sensation Test (HASTe)

Design, Fabrication, and Administration of the Hand Active Sensation Test (HASTe)

Published on: September 8, 2015

Intravital Two-Photon Imaging of Touch Sensory Axon Morphology in Mouse Skin

Intravital Two-Photon Imaging of Touch Sensory Axon Morphology in Mouse Skin

Published on: December 30, 2025

Area of Science:

Neuroscience
Robotics
Human Motor Control

Background:

Active sensing integrates sensory feedback with motor commands for exploration.
Understanding the neural mechanisms of haptic feedback processing is crucial for developing advanced human-robot interaction.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate the neural processes underlying active haptic exploration and motor correction.
To examine how humans adapt to changing surface curvatures during movement.

Main Methods:

Human subjects explored virtual spheres using robotic devices, adjusting speed and pressure.
Researchers analyzed changes in contact force and movement in response to varying sphere curvatures.
Investigated reaction latencies to unexpected surface transitions.

Main Results:

Subjects gradually accumulated haptic information and adjusted motor commands based on surface curvature.
An abrupt decrease in contact force (50 ms latency) was observed upon encountering unexpected curvature changes.
This rapid response suggests the involvement of spinal cord mechanisms.

Conclusions:

Haptic exploration involves continuous accumulation of sensory data and motor command adjustments.
Spinally mediated reflexes play a significant role in rapid motor corrections during active sensing.
Neural comparisons between expected and actual somatosensory feedback occur at multiple levels, including the spinal cord.