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Differential width discrimination task for active and passive tactile discrimination in humans

The neurophysiological basis of width discrimination has been extensively studied in rodents and has shown that active and passive tactile discrimination engage fundamentally different neural networks. Although previous studies have analyzed active and passive tactile processing in humans, little is...

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Autores principales: Perrotta, André, Pais-Vieira, Carla, Allahdad, Mehrab K., Bicho, Estela, Pais-Vieira, Miguel
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Elsevier 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7155220/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32309150
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.mex.2020.100852
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author Perrotta, André
Pais-Vieira, Carla
Allahdad, Mehrab K.
Bicho, Estela
Pais-Vieira, Miguel
author_facet Perrotta, André
Pais-Vieira, Carla
Allahdad, Mehrab K.
Bicho, Estela
Pais-Vieira, Miguel
author_sort Perrotta, André
collection PubMed
description The neurophysiological basis of width discrimination has been extensively studied in rodents and has shown that active and passive tactile discrimination engage fundamentally different neural networks. Although previous studies have analyzed active and passive tactile processing in humans, little is known about the neurophysiological basis of width discrimination in humans. Here we present a width discrimination task for humans that reproduces the main features of the width discrimination task previously developed for rodents. The task required subjects to actively or passively sample two movable bars forming a “narrow” or “wide” aperture. Subjects were then required to press one of two buttons to indicate if the bar width was “narrow” or “wide”. Behavioral testing showed that subjects were capable of discriminating between wide or narrow apertures up to distances of 0.1 cm. Electroencephalography (EEG) recordings further suggested distinct topographic maps for active and passive versions of the task during the period associated with the aperture discrimination. These results indicate that the Human Differential Width Discrimination Task is a valuable tool to describe the behavioral characteristics and neurophysiological basis of tactile processing. • Active and passive width discrimination has been extensively studied in rodents but not in humans. • Human subjects were capable of discriminating aperture widths of 0.1 cm. • Electroencephalography recordings showed that active and passive versions of the task were associated with different topographic maps.
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spelling pubmed-71552202020-04-17 Differential width discrimination task for active and passive tactile discrimination in humans Perrotta, André Pais-Vieira, Carla Allahdad, Mehrab K. Bicho, Estela Pais-Vieira, Miguel MethodsX Neuroscience The neurophysiological basis of width discrimination has been extensively studied in rodents and has shown that active and passive tactile discrimination engage fundamentally different neural networks. Although previous studies have analyzed active and passive tactile processing in humans, little is known about the neurophysiological basis of width discrimination in humans. Here we present a width discrimination task for humans that reproduces the main features of the width discrimination task previously developed for rodents. The task required subjects to actively or passively sample two movable bars forming a “narrow” or “wide” aperture. Subjects were then required to press one of two buttons to indicate if the bar width was “narrow” or “wide”. Behavioral testing showed that subjects were capable of discriminating between wide or narrow apertures up to distances of 0.1 cm. Electroencephalography (EEG) recordings further suggested distinct topographic maps for active and passive versions of the task during the period associated with the aperture discrimination. These results indicate that the Human Differential Width Discrimination Task is a valuable tool to describe the behavioral characteristics and neurophysiological basis of tactile processing. • Active and passive width discrimination has been extensively studied in rodents but not in humans. • Human subjects were capable of discriminating aperture widths of 0.1 cm. • Electroencephalography recordings showed that active and passive versions of the task were associated with different topographic maps. Elsevier 2020-03-19 /pmc/articles/PMC7155220/ /pubmed/32309150 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.mex.2020.100852 Text en © 2020 The Author(s) http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Neuroscience
Perrotta, André
Pais-Vieira, Carla
Allahdad, Mehrab K.
Bicho, Estela
Pais-Vieira, Miguel
Differential width discrimination task for active and passive tactile discrimination in humans
title Differential width discrimination task for active and passive tactile discrimination in humans
title_full Differential width discrimination task for active and passive tactile discrimination in humans
title_fullStr Differential width discrimination task for active and passive tactile discrimination in humans
title_full_unstemmed Differential width discrimination task for active and passive tactile discrimination in humans
title_short Differential width discrimination task for active and passive tactile discrimination in humans
title_sort differential width discrimination task for active and passive tactile discrimination in humans
topic Neuroscience
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7155220/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32309150
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.mex.2020.100852
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