Tactile sensory channels over-ruled by frequency decoding system that utilizes spike pattern regardless of receptor type

ELife
Ingvars BirznieksRichard M Vickery

Abstract

The established view is that vibrotactile stimuli evoke two qualitatively distinctive cutaneous sensations, flutter (frequencies < 60 Hz) and vibratory hum (frequencies > 60 Hz), subserved by two distinct receptor types (Meissner's and Pacinian corpuscle, respectively), which may engage different neural processing pathways or channels and fulfil quite different biological roles. In psychological and physiological literature, those two systems have been labelled as Pacinian and non-Pacinian channels. However, we present evidence that low-frequency spike trains in Pacinian afferents can readily induce a vibratory percept with the same low frequency attributes as sinusoidal stimuli of the same frequency, thus demonstrating a universal frequency decoding system. We achieved this using brief low-amplitude pulsatile mechanical stimuli to selectively activate Pacinian afferents. This indicates that spiking pattern, regardless of receptor type, determines vibrotactile frequency perception. This mechanism may underlie the constancy of vibrotactile frequency perception across different skin regions innervated by distinct afferent types.

References

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May 10, 2017·Current Biology : CB·Ingvars Birznieks, Richard M Vickery
Jun 28, 2017·Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America·Hannes P SaalSliman J Bensmaia

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Software Mentioned

Psychtoolbox
GraphPad Prism
Spike2
MATLAB
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