Work

Predicting the Timing of Spikes Evoked by Tactile Stimulation of the Hand

Year: 2010

Type: article

Abstract: What does the hand tell the brain? Tactile stimulation of the hand evokes remarkably precise patterns of neural activity, suggesting that the timing of individual spikes may convey information. However, many aspects of the transformation of mechanical deformations of the skin into spike trains remain unknown. Here we describe an integrate-and-fire model that accurately predicts the timing of individual spikes evoked by arbitrary mechanical vibrations in three types of mechanoreceptive afferent fibers that innervate the hand. The model accounts for most known properties of the three fiber types, including rectification, frequency-sensitivity, and patterns of spike entrainment as a function of stimulus frequency. These results not only shed light on the mechanisms of mechanotransduction but can be used to provide realistic tactile feedback in upper-limb neuroprostheses.

Source: Journal of Neurophysiology

DOI: 10.1152/jn.00187.2010

Authors: Sung Soo Kim, Arun P. Sripati, Sliman J. Bensmaia

Institutions: Johns Hopkins University, Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition, Indian Institute of Science Bangalore, Carnegie Mellon University, University of Chicago

Language: English

Topic: Tactile and Sensory Interactions

Subfield: Cognitive Neuroscience

Field: Neuroscience

Domain: Life Sciences

Open Access status: green

Funders: National Eye Institute, National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke

Awards: Cortical Processing of Tactual Spacial Information, Inferotemporal Cortex and Object Vision