Journal ArticleDOI
Functional role of unmyelinated tactile afferents in human hairy skin: sympathetic response and perceptual localization
Håkan Olausson,Jonathan Cole,Karin Rylander,Francis McGlone,Yves Lamarre,B. Gunnar Wallin,Heidrun H. Krämer,Johan Wessberg,Mikael Elam,M. Catherine Bushnell,A B Vallbo +10 more
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TLDR
It is demonstrated that CT stimulation can elicit a sympathetic skin response and the findings support the interpretation that the CT system is well suited to underpin affective rather than discriminative functions of tactile sensations.Abstract:
In addition to A-beta fibres the human hairy skin has unmyelinated (C) fibres responsive to light touch. Previous functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies in a subject with a neuronopathy who specifically lacks A-beta afferents indicated that tactile C afferents (CT) activate insular cortex, whereas no response was seen in somatosensory areas 1 and 2. Psychophysical tests suggested that CT afferents give rise to an inconsistent perception of weak and pleasant touch. By examining two neuronopathy subjects as well as control subjects we have now demonstrated that CT stimulation can elicit a sympathetic skin response. Further, the neuronopathy subjects' ability to localize stimuli which activate CT afferents was very poor but above chance level. The findings support the interpretation that the CT system is well suited to underpin affective rather than discriminative functions of tactile sensations.read more
Citations
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Cellular and Molecular Mechanisms of Pain
TL;DR: Genetic, electrophysiological, and pharmacological studies are elucidating the molecular mechanisms that underlie detection, coding, and modulation of noxious stimuli that generate pain.
Journal ArticleDOI
Coding of pleasant touch by unmyelinated afferents in humans
Line S. Löken,Johan Wessberg,India Morrison,India Morrison,Francis McGlone,Håkan Olausson,Håkan Olausson +6 more
TL;DR: During soft brush stroking, low-threshold unmyelinated mechanoreceptors (C-tactile), but not myelinated afferents, responded most vigorously at intermediate brushing velocities, which were perceived by subjects as being the most pleasant.
Journal ArticleDOI
Discriminative and Affective Touch: Sensing and Feeling
TL;DR: It is proposed that a class of low-threshold mechanosensitive C fibers that innervate the hairy skin represent the neurobiological substrate for the affective and rewarding properties of touch.
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The science of interpersonal touch: An overview
Alberto Gallace,Charles Spence +1 more
TL;DR: This review critically evaluate the results of the research on interpersonal touch that have emerged from disciplines, such as cognitive and social psychology, neuroscience, and cultural anthropology to develop a more complete understanding of interpersonal touch in the years to come.
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Wearable Haptic Systems for the Fingertip and the Hand: Taxonomy, Review, and Perspectives
Claudio Pacchierotti,Stephen Sinclair,Massimiliano Solazzi,Antonio Frisoli,Vincent Hayward,Domenico Prattichizzo +5 more
TL;DR: This paper presents a taxonomy and review of wearable haptic systems for the fingertip and the hand, focusing on those systems directly addressing wearability challenges, and reports on the future perspectives of the field.
References
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Journal ArticleDOI
Unmyelinated tactile afferents signal touch and project to insular cortex
Håkan Olausson,Yves Lamarre,H. Backlund,H. Backlund,Chantal Morin,B.G. Wallin,Göran Starck,Sven Ekholm,Irina A. Strigo,K. Worsley,A B Vallbo,M.C. Bushnell +11 more
TL;DR: The authors found that activation of unmyelinated tactile (CT) afferents produced a faint sensation of pleasant touch, which may underlie emotional, hormonal and affiliative responses to skin-to-skin contact between individuals.
Journal ArticleDOI
Unmyelinated afferents constitute a second system coding tactile stimuli of the human hairy skin.
TL;DR: It was concluded that human hairy skin is innervated by a system of highly sensitive mechanoreceptive units with unmyelinated afferents akin to the system previously described in other mammals.
Journal ArticleDOI
Touch, pain and tickling: an electro-physiological investigation on cutaneous sensory nerves
TL;DR: The present research was started in order to study the response of the thinnest afferent fibres to various stimuli applied to the skin to provide some fixed points for the correlation of results from different experiments.
Journal ArticleDOI
Sympathetic reflex latencies and conduction velocities in normal man
J. Fagius,B.G. Wallin +1 more
TL;DR: It is concluded that determination of reflex latency is a useful indirect measure of conduction velocity in sympathetic postganglionic fibres.