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Cited by 207Tactile and Sensory InteractionsMotor Control and AdaptationIon Channels and Receptors

Edge-orientation processing in first-order tactile neurons

Pruszynski, J Andrew, Johansson, Roland S·2014·Nature Neuroscience
DOI 10.1038/nn.3804
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Abstract

A fundamental feature of first-order neurons in the tactile system is that their distal axon branches in the skin and forms many transduction sites, yielding complex receptive fields with many highly sensitive zones. We found that this arrangement constitutes a peripheral neural mechanism that allows individual neurons to signal geometric features of touched objects. Specifically, we observed that two types of first-order tactile neurons that densely innervate the glabrous skin of the human fingertips signaled edge orientation via both the intensity and the temporal structure of their responses. Moreover, we found that the spatial layout of a neuron's highly sensitive zones predicted its sensitivity to particular edge orientations. We submit that peripheral neurons in the touch-processing pathway, as with peripheral neurons in the visual-processing pathway, perform feature extraction computations that are typically attributed to neurons in the cerebral cortex.

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Crossref · 10.1038/nn.3804

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  • Certain key features of the object, such as the presence and orientation of edges, are enhanced at the periphery due to skin mechanics and the geometry of the receptive fields.

    “Certain key features of the object, for example the presence and orientation of edges, are enhanced at the periphery due to skin mechanics (Fig. 4A) (Phillips and Johnson, 1981;Sripati et al., 2006) and the geometry of the receptive fields (Pruszynski and Johansson, 2014).”

    From Biomimetic approaches to bionic touch through a peripheral nerve interface (2015) · cites this paper as Pruszynski and Johansson, 2014

  • Receptive fields of type I afferents are not uniform but contain several individual subfields or hot spots in both glabrous and hairy skin.

    “The reasoning above ignores the fact that receptive fields of type I afferents are not uniform but contain several individual subfields or hot spots, as demonstrated in both glabrous (Johansson 1978;Pruszynski and Johansson 2014) and hairy skin (Vallbo et al. 1995).”

    From Tactile innervation densities across the whole body (2020) · cites this paper as Pruszynski and Johansson 2014

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Authors
Pruszynski, J. A., & Johansson, R. S.
Affiliations
Umeå University (SE)
Corresponding author
Pruszynski, J Andrew
ORCID
Venue
Nature Neuroscience
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Published
2014-08-31
Volume
17
Issue
10
Pages
1404-1409
ISSN
  • 1097-6256 (ISSN-L)
  • 1546-1726
DOI
10.1038/nn.3804
OpenAlex
W2091789155
Cited by
207
References
5
Citations by year
2026: 13 · 2025: 12 · 2024: 29 · 2023: 4 · 2022: 25 · 2021: 23 · 2020: 19 · 2019: 16 · 2018: 18 · 2017: 14 · 2016: 18 · 2015: 14 · 2014: 2
FWCI
8.19
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
closed
Licence
www.springer.com/tdm (tdm)
Locations
  • Nature Neuroscience (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
Funders
  • Karolinska Institutet
  • Vetenskapsrådet
  • University of Tennessee Space Institute
Topics
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Tactile and Sensory Interactions
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Motor Control and Adaptation
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Sensory Systems › Ion Channels and Receptors
Keywords
edge orientation, receptive fields, dendritic branching, glabrous skin, feature extraction, temporal coding, intensity coding, object shape perception
MeSH terms
Action Potentials, Adult, Afferent Pathways, Brain Mapping, Female, Humans, Male, Models, Neurological, Motion Perception, Neurons, Orientation, Predictive Value of Tests, ROC Curve, Somatosensory Cortex, Time Factors, Touch, Young Adult

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