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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.
Design Example: Resistive Touchscreen01:14

Design Example: Resistive Touchscreen

A device engineer plays a crucial role in designing user interfaces for mobile devices. One such interface is the resistive touchscreen, which fundamentally consists of two metallic layers: a flexible upper layer and a rigid lower layer, separated by a narrow gap. The high resistance between these two layers is a key characteristic of this design.
When a user touches the screen, the two layers make contact at a specific point known as the touchpoint. This contact reduces the resistance between...
Tactile and Chemical Senses01:27

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...
Sensory Functions of the Skin01:16

Sensory Functions of the Skin

The skin is the largest organ of the human body and plays a crucial role in our sensory perception. It contains a vast network of sensory receptors that contribute to the skin's protective function by perceiving physical, biological, and environmental cues and generating relevant responses.
There are two main categories of receptors on the skin: capsulated and non-capsulated. The non-capsulated ones are mainly the pain receptors. The capsulated ones can be further categorized based on the...
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...
Introduction to Special Senses01:26

Introduction to Special Senses

Sensory receptors play an integral part in comprehending our external and internal environments. They receive diverse stimuli, converting them into the nervous system's electrochemical signals. This conversion occurs as the stimulus alters the sensory neuron's cell membrane potential, instigating the generation of an action potential. This action potential is subsequently transmitted to the central nervous system (CNS), which integrates with other sensory data or higher cognitive functions.

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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Jun 10, 2026

Tactile Semiautomatic Passive-Finger Angle Stimulator (TSPAS)
04:40

Tactile Semiautomatic Passive-Finger Angle Stimulator (TSPAS)

Published on: July 30, 2020

Touch perception: how we know where we are touched.

Tobias Heed1

  • 1Biological Psychology and Neuropsychology, University of Hamburg, Von-Melle-Park 11, Room 317, D-20146 Hamburg, Germany. tobias.schicke@uni-hamburg.de

Current Biology : CB
|July 27, 2010
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

The brain maps touch sensations not just on skin but also in 3D space. This study connects human behavior and monkey brain activity to model how skin sensations are converted into spatial representations.

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Related Experiment Videos

Last Updated: Jun 10, 2026

Tactile Semiautomatic Passive-Finger Angle Stimulator (TSPAS)
04:40

Tactile Semiautomatic Passive-Finger Angle Stimulator (TSPAS)

Published on: July 30, 2020

Measurement of Vibration Detection Threshold and Tactile Spatial Acuity in Human Subjects
07:32

Measurement of Vibration Detection Threshold and Tactile Spatial Acuity in Human Subjects

Published on: September 1, 2016

Testing Tactile Masking between the Forearms
08:05

Testing Tactile Masking between the Forearms

Published on: February 10, 2016

Area of Science:

  • Neuroscience
  • Somatosensation
  • Spatial Cognition

Background:

  • The brain processes tactile information from the skin surface.
  • Understanding how the brain represents touch in three-dimensional (3D) space is crucial for explaining complex behaviors.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the neural mechanisms underlying the brain's representation of touch in 3D space.
  • To link human behavioral data with neurophysiological findings in non-human primates.

Main Methods:

  • Behavioral experiments in humans to assess spatial touch localization.
  • Neurophysiological recordings in monkeys performing tactile tasks.
  • Computational modeling to integrate behavioral and neural data.

Main Results:

  • Human participants demonstrated accurate localization of tactile stimuli in 3D space.
  • Monkey brain activity correlated with spatial coordinates rather than just skin location.
  • A computational model was proposed to explain the transformation of skin-based to space-based tactile representations.

Conclusions:

  • The brain recodes tactile information from skin coordinates to spatial coordinates.
  • This spatial recoding is essential for navigating and interacting with the environment.
  • The study provides a framework for understanding the neural basis of spatial touch perception.