G16.2006
INTRODUCTION TO INTEGRATIVE AND COGNITIVE NEUROSCIENCE
SPRING TERM 2009
Somatic sensation
Required readings:
Gardner and Johnson: Chapter 22 [The Somatosensory System]
Gardner and Johnson: Chapter 23 [Touch]
Chapters in Squire on Somatic Sensation and Pain
Lectures:
Thursday, February 26:
Tuesday, March 3:
Thursday, March 5:
Peripheral nerves and somatic sensation
Sensory functions of parietal cortex
Pain and temperature sense
Gardner
Gardner
Gardner
Assignment 3: (due 24 March 2009)
The receptive field is considered the elementary unit of spatial information processing in the sense of
touch. (a) Describe the receptive field topography of the four major classes of mechanoreceptors in
the hand of humans and monkeys, and its relationship to receptor morphology. (b) How are these
receptive fields transformed in the primary somatosensory cortex, and in higher areas of the parietal
lobe? (c) Describe the role of receptive fields in yielding percepts of object shape and size when
touched by the hand. (d) How may receptive fields be altered by hand use? Cite examples from the
literature (with references) to support your hypotheses.
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Recommended readings: Mechanoreceptors and peripheral nerves
Primary readings:
Johansson RS, Vallbo ÅB. 1983. Tactile sensory coding in the glabrous skin of the human hand. Trends
Neurosci 6: 27-32
Johnson KO. 2001. The roles and functions of cutaneous mechanoreceptors. Curr Opin Neurobiol 11:
455-461
Secondary readings:
• Johnson KO, Hsiao SS. 1992. Neural mechanisms of tactual form and texture perception. Annu Rev
Neurosci 15: 227-250
• Talbot WH, Darian-Smith I, Kornhuber HH, Mountcastle VB. 1968. The sense of flutter-vibration:
comparison of the human capacity with response patterns of mechanoreceptive afferents from the
monkey hand. J Neurophysiol 31: 301-334
• Westling G, Johansson RS. 1987. Responses in glabrous skin mechanoreceptors during precision grip
in humans. Exp Brain Res 66: 128-140
Other useful references (not required):
Christensen AP, Corey DP. 2007. TRP channels in mechanosensation: direct or indirect activation? Nat
Rev Neurosci 8: 510-521
Edin BB, Abbs JH. 1991. Finger movement responses of cutaneous mechanoreceptors in the dorsal skin
of the human hand. J Neurophysiol 65: 657-670
Goodwin AW, Browning AS, Wheat HE. 1995. Representation of curved surfaces in responses of
mechanoreceptive afferent fibers innervating the monkey's fingerpad. J Neurosci 15: 798-810
Johansson RS, Vallbo AB. 1979. Detection of tactile stimuli. Thresholds of afferent units related to
psychophysical thresholds in the human hand. J Physiol 297: 405-422
LaMotte RH, Mountcastle VB. 1975. Capacities of humans and monkeys to discriminate between
vibratory stimuli of different frequency and amplitude: a correlation between neural events and
psychophysical measurements. J Neurophysiol 38: 539-559
Lin S-Y, Corey DP. 2005. TRP channels in mechanosensation. Curr Opin Neurobiol 15: 350-357
Lumpkin EA, Caterina MJ. 2007. Mechanisms of sensory transduction in the skin. Nature 445: 858-865
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Mountcastle VB, LaMotte RH, Carli G. 1972. Detection thresholds for stimuli in humans and monkeys:
comparison with threshold events in mechanoreceptive afferent fibers innervating the monkey hand.
J Neurophysiol 35: 122-136
Ochoa J, Torebjörk E. 1983. Sensations evoked by intraneural microstimulation of single
mechanoreceptor units innervating the human hand. J Physiol 342: 633-654
Phillips JR, Johansson RS, Johnson KO. 1992. Responses of human mechanoreceptive afferents to
embossed dot arrays scanned across finger pad skin. J Neurosci 12: 827-839
Vallbo ÅB, Hagbarth KE, Torebjörk HE, Wallin BG. 1979. Somatosensory, proprioceptive, and
sympathetic activity in human peripheral nerves. Physiol Rev 59: 919-957
Vallbo ÅB, Olsson KA, Westberg KG, Clark FJ. 1984. Microstimulation of single tactile afferents from
the human hand. Sensory attributes related to unit type and properties of receptive fields. Brain 107:
727-749
Vega-Bermudez F, Johnson KO. 1999. Surround suppression in the responses of primate SA1 and RA
mechanoreceptive afferents mapped with a probe array. J Neurophysiol 81: 2711-2719
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Recommended readings: Somatosensory cortical information processing
Primary readings:
Mountcastle VB. 1995. The parietal system and some higher brain functions. Cerebral Cortex 5: 377390
Nelson RJ, Sur M, Felleman DJ, Kaas JH. 1980. Representations of the body surface in postcentral
parietal cortex of Macaca fascicularis. J Comp Neurol 192: 611-643
Pons TP, Garraghty PE, Ommaya AK, Kaas JH, Taub E, Mishkin M. 1991. Massive cortical
reorganization after sensory deafferentation in adult macaques. Science 252: 1857-1860.
Secondary readings:
• Mountcastle VB. 1997. The columnar organization of the neocortex. Brain 120: 701-722
• Recanzone GH, Merzenich MM, Jenkins WM, Grajski KA, Dinse HR. 1992. Topographic
reorganization of the hand representation in cortical area 3b owl monkeys trained in a frequencydiscrimination task. J Neurophysiol 67: 1031-1056.
• Romo R, Salinas E. (2003). Flutter Discrimination: Neural codes, perception, memory and decision
making. Nature Reviews: Neuroscience 4: 293-218.
Other useful references (not required):
Costanzo RM, Gardner EP. 1980. A quantitative analysis of responses of direction-sensitive neurons in
somatosensory cortex of alert monkeys. J Neurophysiol 43: 1319-1341
DiCarlo JJ, Johnson KO, Hsaio SS. 1998. Structure of receptive fields in area 3b of primary
somatosensory cortex in the alert monkey. J Neurosci 18: 2626-264
Felleman DJ, Van Essen DC. 1991. Distributed hierarchical processing in the primate cerebral cortex.
Cerebral Cortex 1: 1-47
Fitzgerald PJ, Lane JW, Thakur PH, Hsiao SS. 2004. Receptive field properties of the macaque second
somatosensory cortex: evidence for multiple functional representations. J Neurosci 24: 11193–11204
Gardner EP. 1988. Somatosensory cortical mechanisms of feature detection in tactile and kinesthetic
discrimination. Can J Physiol Pharmacol 66: 439-454
Hsiao SS, O'Shaughnessy DM, Johnson KO. 1993. Effects of selective attention on spatial form
processing in monkey primary and secondary somatosensory cortex. J Neurophysiol 70: 444-447.
Hyvärinen J, Poranen A. 1978. Movement-sensitive and direction and orientation-selective cutaneous
receptive fields in the hand area of the post-central gyrus in monkeys. J Physiol (Lond) 283: 523-537
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Iwamura Y, Tanaka M, Sakamoto M, Hikosaka O. 1993. Rostrocaudal gradients in neuronal receptive
field complexity in the finger region of the alert monkey's postcentral gyrus. Exp Brain Res 92: 360368
Jenkins WM, Merzenich MM, Ochs MT, Allard T, Guíc-Robles E. 1990. Functional reorganization of
primary somatosensory cortex in adult owl monkeys after behaviorally controlled tactile stimulation.
J Neurophysiol 63: 82-104.
Jones EG, Pons TP. 1998. Thalamic and brainstem contributions to large-scale plasticity of primate
somatosensory cortex. Science 282: 1121-1125
Merzenich MM, Kaas JH, Wall J, Nelson RJ, Sur M, Felleman D. 1983. Topographic reorganization of
somatosensory cortical areas 3b and 1 in adult monkeys following restricted deafferentation.
Neuroscience 8: 33-55.
Mountcastle VB, Lynch JC, Georgopoulos AP, Sakata H, Acuna C. 1975. Posterior parietal association
cortex of the monkey: command functions for operations within extrapersonal space. J Neurophysiol
38: 871-908
Pause M, Kunesch E, Binkofski F, Freund H-J. 1989. Sensorimotor disturbances in patients with lesions
of the parietal cortex. Brain 112: 1599-1625
Romo R, Hernandez A, Zainos A, Lemus l, Brody CD. (2002) Neural correlates of decision-making in
secondary somatosensory cortex. Nature Neuroscience 5: 1217-1225.
Roy A, Steinmetz PN, Hsiao SS, Johnson KO, Niebur E. 2007. Synchrony: a neural correlate of
somatosensory attention. J Neurophysiol 98: 1645-1661
Shoham D, Grinvald A. 2001. The cortical representation of the hand in macaque and human area S-I:
high resolution optical imaging. J Neurosci 21: 6820-6835
Sripati AP, Yoshioka T, Denchev P, Hsiao SS, Johnson KO. 2006. Spatiotemporal receptive fields of
peripheral afferents and cortical area 3b and 1 neurons in the primate somatosensory system. J
Neurosci 26: 2101-2114
Sur M, Merzenich M, Kaas JH. 1980. Magnification, receptive-field area, and “hypercolumn” size in
areas 3b and 1 of somatosensory cortex in owl monkeys. J Neurophysiol 44: 295-311
Woods TM, Cusick CG, Pons TP, Taub E, Jones EG. 2000. Progressive transneuronal changes in the
brainstem and thalamus after long-term dorsal rhizotomies in adult macaque monkeys. J Neurosci
20: 3884-3899.
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Recommended readings: Pain and Temperature:
Primary readings:
Bandell M, Macpherson LJ, Patapoutian A. 2007. From chills to chilis: mechanisms for thermosensation
and chemesthesis via thermoTRPs. Curr Opin Neurobiol 17: 490-497
Willis WD. 2007. The somatosensory system, with emphasis on structures important for pain. Brain Res
Rev 55: 297-313
Secondary readings:
• Craig AD. 2003. Pain mechanisms: labeled lines versus convergence in central processing. Annu Rev
Neurosci 26: 1-30
• Julius D, Basbaum AI. 2001. Molecular mechanisms of nociception. Nature 413: 203-210
• Scholz J, Woolf CJ. Can we conquer pain? Nature Neurosci Suppl 5: 1062-1067, 2002
Other useful references (not required):
Apkarian AV, Bushnell MC, Treede R-D, Zubieta J-K. 2005. Human brain mechanisms of pain
perception and regulation in health and disease. Eur J Pain 9: 463-484
Basbaum AI, Fields HL. 1984. Endogenous pain control systems: brainstem spinal pathways and
endorphin circuitry. Annu Rev Neurosci 7: 309-338.
Craig AD. 2002. How do you feel? Interoception: the sense of the physiological condition of the body.
Nature Reviews Neuroscience 3: 655-666
Darian-Smith I, Johnson KO, Dykes R. 1973. “Cold” fiber population innervating palmar and digital
skin of the monkey: responses to cooling pulses. J Neurophysiol 36: 325-346
Darian-Smith I, Johnson KO, LaMotte C, Shigenaga Y, Kenins P, Champness P. 1979. Warm fibers
innervating palmar and digital skin of the monkey: responses to thermal stimuli. J Neurophysiol 42:
1297-1315
Dhaka A, Viswanath V, Patapoutian A. 2006. TRP Ion Channels and Temperature Sensation. Annu Rev
Neurosci 29: 135-161
Ochoa J, Torebjörk E. 1989. Sensations evoked by intraneural microstimulation of C nociceptor fibres in
human skin nerves. J Physiol 415: 583-599
Perl ER. 1968. Myelinated afferent fibers innervating the primate skin and their response to noxious
stimuli. J Physiol (Lond) 197: 593-615
Perl ER. 1996. Cutaneous polymodal receptors: characteristics and plasticity. Prog Brain Res 113: 21-37
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Tracey I, Mantyh PW. The cerebral signature for pain perception and its modulation. 2007. Neuron 55:
377-391
Willis WD, Westlund KN. 1997. Neuroanatomy of the pain system and of the pathways that modulate
pain. J Clin Neurophysiol 14: 2–31
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