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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.

Vision

Vision

Vision is the result of light being detected and transduced into neural signals by the retina of the eye. This information is then further analyzed and interpreted by the brain. First, light enters the front of the eye and is focused by the cornea and lens onto the retina—a thin sheet of neural tissue lining the back of the eye. Because of refraction through the convex lens of the eye, images are projected onto the retina upside-down and reversed.

Visual System

Visual System

Light enters the eye through the cornea, a transparent, dome-shaped surface covering the surface of the eyeball that helps to direct and focus incoming light. This light is then channeled toward the pupil, an adjustable opening whose size is controlled by the iris. The iris, a pigmented muscle, regulates the amount of light entering the eye by contracting or dilating the pupil, thereby ensuring optimal light levels for clear vision.
Once through the pupil, the light passes through the lens, a...

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.

Depth Perception and Spatial Vision

Depth Perception and Spatial Vision

Depth perception is the ability to perceive objects three-dimensionally. It relies on two types of cues: binocular and monocular. Binocular cues depend on the combination of images from both eyes and how the eyes work together. Since the eyes are in slightly different positions, each eye captures a slightly different image. This disparity between images, known as binocular disparity, helps the brain interpret depth. When the brain compares these images, it determines the distance to an object.

Motor and Sensory Areas of the Cortex

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....

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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Feb 22, 2026

Tactile Semiautomatic Passive-Finger Angle Stimulator TSPAS

Tactile Semiautomatic Passive-Finger Angle Stimulator TSPAS

Published on: July 30, 2020

Visual Experience Shapes the Neural Networks Remapping Touch into External Space.

Virginie Crollen¹, Latifa Lazzouni², Mohamed Rezk³

¹Centre for Mind/Brain Science, University of Trento, 38123 Mattarello TN, Italy, virginie.crollen@unitn.it olivier.collignon@uclouvain.be.

The Journal of Neuroscience : the Official Journal of the Society for Neuroscience

|September 27, 2017

Summary

Early visual deprivation alters how the brain processes touch location. Congenitally blind individuals show different brain activity and connectivity patterns for tactile spatial judgments compared to sighted individuals.

Keywords:

blindness crossed-hands deficit spatial frames of reference tactile localization temporal order judgment

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Published on: May 23, 2019

Area of Science:

Neuroscience
Sensory Perception
Cognitive Science

Background:

Localizing touch involves integrating skin-based and external spatial frames of reference.
Early visual deprivation is known to impair the automatic remapping of touch into external space.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate how visual experience influences the brain circuits involved in the spatial processing of touch.
To compare the neural processing of tactile spatial judgments in sighted and congenitally blind individuals.

Main Methods:

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was used to study brain activity.
Participants (sighted and congenitally blind) performed a tactile temporal order judgment (TOJ) task with hands uncrossed and crossed.
Behavioral data and psychophysiological interaction analyses were conducted.

Main Results:

Crossing hands impaired TOJ performance in sighted individuals but not in the early blind.
Sighted individuals showed increased frontoparietal network activity in the crossed hand posture.
Congenitally blind individuals exhibited enhanced functional connectivity between parietal and frontal regions when hands were crossed.

Conclusions:

Visual experience is crucial for scaffolding the neural implementation of touch localization in space.
Early visual deprivation alters brain activity within the dorsal parietofrontal network supporting touch localization.
Developmental vision plays an intrinsic role in the neural processing of tactile perception in external space.