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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.

Somatosensory, Motor, and Association Cortex

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...

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....

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.

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...

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...

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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Jan 11, 2026

Corticospinal Excitability Modulation During Action Observation

Corticospinal Excitability Modulation During Action Observation

Published on: December 31, 2013

Expectation Of Tactile Signals In Human Motor Cortex.

Natalya D Shelchkova¹, Ali H Alamri², Alexandriya M X Emonds¹

¹Department of Organismal Biology and Anatomy, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL.

Medrxiv : the Preprint Server for Health Sciences

|November 19, 2025

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

Sensory expectations activate specific finger areas in the motor cortex, even without movement. These signals in the motor cortex are distinct from pure motor intent, revealing multiplexed information processing.

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Last Updated: Jan 11, 2026

Corticospinal Excitability Modulation During Action Observation

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Published on: December 31, 2013

Stimulating the Lip Motor Cortex with Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation

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Published on: June 14, 2014

Measuring and Manipulating Functionally Specific Neural Pathways in the Human Motor System with Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation

Measuring and Manipulating Functionally Specific Neural Pathways in the Human Motor System with Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation

Published on: February 23, 2020

Area of Science:

Neuroscience
Cognitive Neuroscience
Motor Control

Background:

Somatosensory feedback and attention are crucial for skilled motor behaviors.
Tactile and proprioceptive signals integrate into motor plans, and feedback expectation influences motor responses.
Previous studies often confound sensory expectation signals with motor tasks, complicating analysis.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate sensory expectations in human motor cortex without a concurrent motor task.
To identify and characterize neural signals related to sensory expectation with reduced confounds.
To explore the neural representation of sensory expectation in relation to motor intent.

Main Methods:

Utilized electrode arrays implanted in sensory and motor cortices of two participants.
Recorded neural activity during focused attention on individual fingers in the absence of motor tasks.
Compared neural signals associated with sensory expectation to those from an imagined movement task.

Main Results:

Attention to individual fingers induced digit-specific activation within the motor cortex.
Sensory cortex activation remained unperturbed by attention deployment.
Expectation signals in motor cortex occupied a distinct neural subspace, separate from pure motor intent representations.
Expectation signals aligned with the somatotopic organization observed for movement intent.

Conclusions:

Motor cortex exhibits digit-specific activation related to sensory expectation, independent of motor execution.
Sensory expectation signals in motor cortex are distinct from motor intent signals.
Motor cortex demonstrates multiplexing of different types of neural signals, including sensory expectation and motor commands.