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Related Concept Videos

Somatosensation01:33

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.
Somatosensory, Motor, and Association Cortex01:23

Somatosensory, Motor, and Association Cortex

The somatosensory cortex in the parietal lobes is crucial for interpreting sensory data such as touch, temperature, and proprioception. The somatosensory cortex, situated in the parietal lobes, plays a vital role in interpreting sensory information like touch, temperature, and proprioception—awareness of body position. This specialized brain region features an organized structure wherein neurons at the top primarily process sensations originating from the lower body. In contrast, those at the...
Motor and Sensory Areas of the Cortex01:14

Motor and Sensory Areas of the Cortex

The cerebral cortex, the brain's outermost layer, is pivotal in processing complex cognitive tasks, emotions, and various sensory inputs and executing voluntary motor activities. This intricate structure is divided into three primary functional areas: the motor areas, sensory areas, and association areas.
Motor Areas
The motor areas located in the frontal lobe are central to controlling voluntary movements. This region is further subdivided into the primary motor cortex and the premotor cortex.
Association Areas of the Cortex01:21

Association Areas of the Cortex

Association areas are regions of the cerebral cortex that do not have a specific sensory or motor function. Instead, they integrate and interpret information from various sources to enable higher cognitive processes such as memory, learning, and decision-making. Some key association areas include the following:
Prefrontal Association Area: This area is located in the frontal lobe and is involved in planning, decision-making, and moderating social behavior. It connects with primary motor areas,...
Major Somatic Sensory Pathways01:28

Major Somatic Sensory Pathways

Sensory impulses related to touch, pressure, vibration, and proprioception from various body parts, such as the limbs, trunk, neck, and posterior head, travel to the cerebral cortex through the posterior column-medial lemniscus pathway. The pathway’s name derives from the two white-matter tracts that convey the impulses: the spinal cord's posterior column and the brainstem's medial lemniscus. First-order sensory neurons extend their axons into the spinal cord, forming the posterior columns...
Sensory Perception: Organization of the Somatosensory System01:11

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...

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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Jun 10, 2026

Testing Tactile Masking between the Forearms
08:05

Testing Tactile Masking between the Forearms

Published on: February 10, 2016

The posterior parietal cortex remaps touch into external space.

Elena Azañón1, Matthew R Longo, Salvador Soto-Faraco

  • 1Departament de Psicologia Bàsica, Universitat de Barcelona, 08035 Barcelona, Spain.

Current Biology : CB
|July 20, 2010
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

Researchers found that disrupting the right posterior parietal cortex (rPPC) selectively impairs tactile remapping into external space. This suggests the human posterior parietal cortex plays a causal role in integrating touch with body posture for spatial awareness.

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Last Updated: Jun 10, 2026

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Published on: February 10, 2016

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Area of Science:

  • Neuroscience
  • Cognitive Neuroscience
  • Haptic Perception

Background:

  • Localizing tactile events in external space is crucial for orientation, exploration, and action.
  • This requires integrating somatosensory (skin) and proprioceptive (body posture) information into a spatiotopic map.
  • The posterior parietal cortex (PPC), particularly the ventral intraparietal area (VIP), is hypothesized to support external spatial representations.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the neural basis of tactile remapping into external space in humans.
  • To determine the causal role of the right posterior parietal cortex (rPPC) in this process.
  • To differentiate tactile remapping from pure somatosensory or proprioceptive localization.

Main Methods:

  • Used single-pulse transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to disrupt neural activity in the rPPC.
  • Participants judged the elevation of tactile stimuli on the forearm relative to the face with altered arm postures.
  • Compared performance disruption over rPPC versus a control site (vertex).

Main Results:

  • TMS over the rPPC significantly impaired participants' ability to judge tactile event elevation in external space.
  • Proprioceptive judgments of arm elevation and tactile localization on the skin were unaffected by rPPC TMS.
  • This indicates a selective disruption of the tactile remapping mechanism.

Conclusions:

  • The human posterior parietal cortex (PPC), putatively VIP, plays a causal role in remapping touch into external space.
  • This remapping is a distinct computational process, separable from pure proprioception and somatosensory localization.
  • Findings highlight the PPC's importance in creating external spatial representations of touch.