Pei Yu-Cheng, Bensmaia Sliman J
Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Chang Gung Memorial Hospital, Taoyuan, Taiwan, Republic of China; Healthy Aging Research Center, Chang Gung University, Taoyuan, Taiwan, Republic of China;
Department of Organismal Biology and Anatomy, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois; and Committee on Computational Neuroscience, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois
J Neurophysiol. 2014 Dec 15;112(12):3023-32. doi: 10.1152/jn.00391.2014. Epub 2014 Sep 24.
The manipulation of objects commonly involves motion between object and skin. In this review, we discuss the neural basis of tactile motion perception and its similarities with its visual counterpart. First, much like in vision, the perception of tactile motion relies on the processing of spatiotemporal patterns of activation across populations of sensory receptors. Second, many neurons in primary somatosensory cortex are highly sensitive to motion direction, and the response properties of these neurons draw strong analogies to those of direction-selective neurons in visual cortex. Third, tactile speed may be encoded in the strength of the response of cutaneous mechanoreceptive afferents and of a subpopulation of speed-sensitive neurons in cortex. However, both afferent and cortical responses are strongly dependent on texture as well, so it is unclear how texture and speed signals are disambiguated. Fourth, motion signals from multiple fingers must often be integrated during the exploration of objects, but the way these signals are combined is complex and remains to be elucidated. Finally, visual and tactile motion perception interact powerfully, an integration process that is likely mediated by visual association cortex.
对物体的操作通常涉及物体与皮肤之间的运动。在本综述中，我们讨论触觉运动感知的神经基础及其与视觉对应物的相似性。首先，与视觉非常相似，触觉运动的感知依赖于对感觉受体群体激活的时空模式的处理。其次，初级体感皮层中的许多神经元对运动方向高度敏感，这些神经元的反应特性与视觉皮层中方向选择性神经元的反应特性有很强的相似性。第三，触觉速度可能编码在皮肤机械感受传入神经和皮层中对速度敏感的神经元亚群的反应强度中。然而，传入神经和皮层反应也都强烈依赖于质地，因此尚不清楚质地和速度信号是如何区分的。第四，在物体探索过程中，来自多个手指的运动信号通常必须整合，但这些信号的组合方式很复杂，仍有待阐明。最后，视觉和触觉运动感知相互作用强烈，这一整合过程可能由视觉联合皮层介导。
