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Related Concept Videos

Tactile and Chemical Senses01:27

Tactile and Chemical Senses

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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.
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Somatosensation01:33

Somatosensation

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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.
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Sensory Perception: Organization of the Somatosensory System01:11

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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...
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Sensory Modalities01:15

Sensory Modalities

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Sensation typically is the process by which the sensory receptors and sense organs detect stimuli from the internal and external environment and transmit this information to the central nervous system for processing.
General senses refer to the broad category of sensory information detected by receptors in the body and can be further grouped into somatic and visceral senses. Somatic sensations include touch, pressure, temperature, and pain and are essential for navigating our environment and...
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Sensory Functions of the Skin01:16

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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...
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Overview of Somatic Sensory Pathways01:29

Overview of Somatic Sensory Pathways

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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...
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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Aug 9, 2025

Tactile Semiautomatic Passive-Finger Angle Stimulator TSPAS
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A horizon for haptic perception.

Luke E Miller1, Felix Jarto1, W Pieter Medendorp1

  • 1Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands.

Journal of Neurophysiology
|February 22, 2023
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

Humans can extend their sense of touch far beyond their bodies using tools. This study found that people can haptically perceive objects up to 6 meters away, demonstrating remarkable brain flexibility.

Keywords:
computational modelinghapticssensory horizontactile localizationtool use

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Area of Science:

  • Neuroscience
  • Human sensorimotor system
  • Haptic perception

Background:

  • The sensory horizon, or spatial limits of sensory acquisition, is key to sensorimotor systems.
  • Human haptic perception is known to extend beyond body space using tools, but the extent is unknown.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To determine the spatial limits (sensory horizon) of human haptic perception.
  • To investigate the extent to which tools extend haptic perception beyond the body.

Main Methods:

  • Neuromechanical modeling was used to establish a theoretical haptic sensory horizon.
  • A psychophysical localization paradigm was employed to behaviorally test haptic perception limits.

Main Results:

  • Theoretical modeling predicted a haptic sensory horizon of 6 meters.
  • Psychophysical experiments confirmed humans can haptically localize objects using a 6-meter rod.

Conclusions:

  • The human haptic sensory horizon extends significantly beyond the body when using tools.
  • The brain's sensorimotor representations demonstrate remarkable flexibility in adapting to extended sensory input.