Topic: tactile stimulation

Understanding how the brain processes motor and tactile imagery is crucial for advancing motor control and rehabilitation.However,there is a knowledge gap in research where EEG recordings are combined with TMS to study the effects of imagery:little is known about tactile imagery (TI) effects.In this study, we aimed to bridge this gap by examining corticospinal excitability during motor imagery (MI) and TI using TMS-EEG.Our previous findings demonstrated that both MI and TI increase corticospinal excitability,with MI having a stronger effect,whereas tactile stimulation (TS) decreases corticospi

The mammal brain must dynamically and rapidly adapt to the ever-changing sensory environment. Despite the known importance of neural plasticity in cellular processing, we only have a limited understanding of how this is achieved in vivo. Here, we performed whole-cell patch clamp electrophysiology from layer 2/3 pyramidal neurons in the primary somatosensory cortex in vivo to investigate whether sensory information is dynamically encoded in cortical neurons. First, the plasticity of sensory encoding was tested by repetitive tactile stimulation delivered to the forepaw. Here, sensory encoding wa

Research on conscious somatosensory perception has mainly relied on electrical stimulation. Here, we directly compare the event-related potentials evoked by tactile vs. electrical peri-threshold stimulation, using a matching task to control for post-perceptual processes. EEG was recorded while participants received either electrical pulses to the left median nerve (n=24) or tactile stimulation at the left index finger (n=25). To control for confounding processes, participants did not directly report their experience, but indicated via saccades whether they experienced a match or a mismatch bet

Some animals use the strategy, known as hibernation, to survive harsh environments, such as extreme thermal challenges and food scarcity, by reducing metabolism and core body temperature. Recent work has shown that activation of Qrfp neurons in the preoptic area of the hypothalamus (POA) can induce a hibernation-like state in non-hibernators such as mice, termed Q-neuron-induced hypothermia and hypometabolism (QIH) (Takahashi et al., Nature, 2020). During QIH, the mice show hypothermia with low systemic oxygen consumption. Interestingly, they show immobile behaviours, such as hibernation and a