Tactile Communication Research Laboratory, Pushkin State Russian Language Institute, 117485 Moscow, Russia.
Baltic Center for Artificial Intelligence and Neurotechnology, Immanuel Kant Baltic Federal University, 236016 Kaliningrad, Russia.
Sensors (Basel). 2023 Nov 20;23(22):9286. doi: 10.3390/s23229286.
Tactile perception encompasses several submodalities that are realized with distinct sensory subsystems. The processing of those submodalities and their interactions remains understudied. We developed a paradigm consisting of three types of touch tuned in terms of their force and velocity for different submodalities: discriminative touch (haptics), affective touch (C-tactile touch), and knismesis (alerting tickle). Touch was delivered with a high-precision robotic rotary touch stimulation device. A total of 39 healthy individuals participated in the study. EEG cluster analysis revealed a decrease in alpha and beta range (mu-rhythm) as well as theta and delta increase most pronounced to the most salient and fastest type of stimulation. The participants confirmed that slower stimuli targeted to affective touch low-threshold receptors were the most pleasant ones, and less intense stimuli aimed at knismesis were indeed the most ticklish ones, but those sensations did not form an EEG cluster, probably implying their processing involves deeper brain structures that are less accessible with EEG.
触觉感知包括几种亚模态，这些亚模态是通过不同的感觉子系统来实现的。这些亚模态的处理及其相互作用仍在研究之中。我们开发了一种范式，该范式由三种根据力和速度针对不同亚模态进行调整的触觉类型组成：辨别性触觉（触知觉）、情感性触觉（C 触觉）和快感（警觉性痒觉）。触觉是用高精度的机器人旋转触觉刺激装置来传递的。共有 39 名健康个体参与了这项研究。EEG 聚类分析显示，alpha 和 beta 范围（mu 节律）以及 theta 和 delta 增加，最明显的是最显著和最快的刺激类型。参与者证实，针对情感触觉低阈值感受器的较慢刺激是最令人愉悦的，而针对快感的较弱刺激确实是最痒的，但这些感觉并没有形成一个 EEG 聚类，这可能意味着它们的处理涉及到更深层次的大脑结构，而这些结构是不太容易通过 EEG 来接触的。
