Article
Neurosciences
Michael Schaefer, Marcel Joch, Nikolas Rother
Summary: The concept of empathy describes our capacity to understand the emotions and intentions of others and to relate to our conspecifics. Recent studies in neuroscience suggest a role of the somatosensory cortices for empathy, with findings indicating a positive association between trait empathy and tactile acuity performance.
FRONTIERS IN HUMAN NEUROSCIENCE
(2021)
Article
Biochemical Research Methods
Seong-Hwan Hwang, Doyoung Park, Somang Paeng, Sang Wan Lee, Sue-Hyun Lee, Hyoung F. Kim
Summary: In this study, a pneumatic tactile stimulus delivery system was developed to enable MRI studies of brain mechanisms for tactile processes through natural finger touch.
JOURNAL OF NEUROSCIENCE METHODS
(2023)
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Dan-Mikael Ellingsen, Kylie Isenburg, Changjin Jung, Jeungchan Lee, Jessica Gerber, Ishtiaq Mawla, Roberta Sclocco, Arvina Grahl, Alessandra Anzolin, Robert R. Edwards, Irving Kirsch, Ted J. Kaptchuk, John M. Kelley Hi, Vitaly Napadow
Summary: Social interactions, such as the patient-clinician encounter, can influence pain through dynamic brain processes. Empathy and supportive care can reduce pain intensity in patients. The concordance between the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) and somatosensory processing during pain is boosted by increasing therapeutic alliance.
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
(2023)
Article
Behavioral Sciences
Sakshi Kaur, Svenja Espenhahn, Tiffany Bell, Kate J. Godfrey, Chidera Nwaroh, Adrianna Giuffre, Lauran Cole, Winnica Beltrano, Tingting Yan, Mehak Stokoe, Logan Haynes, Tasha Yuntao Hou, Mark Tommerdahl, Signe Bray, Ashley D. Harris
Summary: This study examined changes in tactile processing in young children using a vibrotactile testing battery. The results showed rapid age-related changes in tactile processing in early childhood, with some tasks reaching adult-like levels at a younger age. This study provides important insights for investigating altered tactile processing in developmental disorders.
BRAIN AND BEHAVIOR
(2022)
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Sayaka Wada, Motoyasu Honma, Yuri Masaoka, Masaki Yoshida, Nobuyoshi Koiwa, Haruko Sugiyama, Natsuko Iizuka, Satomi Kubota, Yumika Kokudai, Akira Yoshikawa, Shotaro Kamijo, Sawa Kamimura, Masahiro Ida, Kenjiro Ono, Hidetoshi Onda, Masahiko Izumizaki
Summary: The study found that brain atrophy associated with emotion recognition was observed in elderly participants, with education years linked to the volume of certain brain regions. Specifically, the volume of the right orbital gyrus, right inferior frontal gyrus, and right supramarginal gyrus were associated with years of education, and the volume of the right supramarginal gyrus was further linked to emotion recognition score.
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Annika Reinersmann, Ian W. Skinner, Thomas Luecke, Nicola Massy-Westropp, Henrik Rudolf, G. Lorimer Moseley, Tasha R. Stanton
Summary: Contrary to expectations, tactile anisotropy was preserved bilaterally in CRPS, and the magnitude of anisotropic perception bias was comparable between groups. Hand perception was distorted in CRPS but not related to the magnitude of anisotropy or bias.
Article
Neurosciences
J. Haertner, S. Strauss, J. Pfannmoeller, M. Lotze
Summary: Our study demonstrates that 3T fMRI is capable of mapping associations between spatio-tactile acuity and the fingertip representation in Area 3b and Area 1 in healthy participants.
Article
Neurosciences
Michael Schaefer, Anja Kuehnel, Franziska Rumpel, Matti Gaertner
Summary: Giving and receiving touch are important social stimuli in daily life. Previous studies have shown that touch can influence altruistic behavior. This study used functional magnetic resonance imaging to investigate the neural mechanisms behind the Midas touch effect. The researchers found that touching the hand increased prosocial behavior, and this effect was associated with activity in the primary somatosensory cortex.
SOCIAL COGNITIVE AND AFFECTIVE NEUROSCIENCE
(2022)
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Scinob Kuroki
Summary: Skin covers the whole body, with variations in thickness and distribution of mechanoreceptors across different body parts. The brain cannot fully compensate for this anisotropy, resulting in differences in the representational space of touch depending on the location of the stimulus. Through a study comparing the hand and arm, it was found that perceived motion can differ between these body parts. By presenting touchable motion stimuli using a large-area braille display, a new perceptual illusion was discovered where motion direction perceived on the arm is regionally rotated or flipped. This study highlights the non-uniformity of perceived tactile space and the need for detailed examination.
SCIENTIFIC REPORTS
(2023)
Article
Clinical Neurology
Virginie Destrebecq, Antonin Rovai, Nicola Trotta, Camille Comet, Gilles Naeije
Summary: This study found that passive movement paradigm led to lower activation in primary and secondary somatosensory cortices in FA compared to healthy subjects, while there was no significant difference in activation levels between healthy controls and FA in the tactile paradigm. Significant correlation was observed between activation levels in the primary somatosensory cortex in the tactile paradigm and clinical severity.
FRONTIERS IN NEUROLOGY
(2023)
Article
Neurosciences
Markus Rutgen, Eva-Maria Wirth, Igor Riecansky, Allan Hummer, Christian Windischberger, Predrag Petrovic, Giorgia Silani, Claus Lamm
Summary: The study suggests that shared neural representations play a role in empathy across different domains; placebo analgesia can reduce both first-hand and empathic experiences of unpleasant touch, while an opioid antagonist cannot block these effects; there are differences in neural mechanisms between pain empathy and pain.
Article
Robotics
Luca Scimeca, Josie Hughes, Perla Maiolino, Liang He, Thrishantha Nanayakkara, Fumiya Iida
Summary: Medical palpation is a diagnostic technique using touch to manipulate soft human tissue, particularly for diagnosing life-threatening conditions like cancer. Research shows that exploring soft body interactions requires complex palpation trajectories, and a probabilistic approach can efficiently search the robot's action space. This study advances robotic palpation and provides frameworks for understanding and utilizing soft body interactions.
Article
Neurosciences
Yinghua Yu, Laurentius Huber, Jiajia Yang, Masaki Fukunaga, Yuhui Chai, David C. Jangraw, Gang Chen, Daniel A. Handwerker, Peter J. Molfese, Yoshimichi Ejima, Norihiro Sadato, Jinglong Wu, Peter A. Bandettini
Summary: The human brain continuously generates predictions of sensory input and calculates prediction errors to update internal predictions. Different layers in the human area 3b contribute differently to the processing of temporal prediction error during tactile tasks.
Article
Neurosciences
Damian M. Manzone, Luc Tremblay
Summary: Our perception can be altered by action observation, and this study found that tactile processing is facilitated when observing slow movements. These findings are important for understanding tactile processing during action observation.
JOURNAL OF NEUROPHYSIOLOGY
(2022)
Article
Neurosciences
Luigi Tame, Raffaele Tucciarelli, Renata Sadibolova, Martin Sereno, Matthew R. Longo
Summary: Psychophysical experiments have shown significant perceptual distortions in tactile space. By analyzing neural activity patterns induced by tactile stimulation on the hand dorsum, researchers found that early sensorimotor areas contribute critically to the distorted internal representation of tactile space.
Article
Psychology
Matthew Hudson, Patric Bach, Toby Nicholson
JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY-HUMAN PERCEPTION AND PERFORMANCE
(2018)
Article
Biology
Matthew Hudson, Katrina L. McDonough, Rhys Edwards, Patric Bach
PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY B-BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
(2018)
Article
Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
Eleanor Ward, Giorgio Ganis, Patric Bach
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Katrina L. McDonough, Matthew Hudson, Patric Bach
SCIENTIFIC REPORTS
(2019)
Article
Psychology
Katrina L. McDonough, Marcello Costantini, Matthew Hudson, Eleanor Ward, Patric Bach
JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY-HUMAN PERCEPTION AND PERFORMANCE
(2020)
Article
Psychology, Biological
Kimberley C. Schenke, Natalie A. Wyer, Steven P. Tipper, Patric Bach
Summary: This study confirmed that people make motoric predictions about others' actions based on prior knowledge and contextual cues, with these predictions influenced by motor biases.
QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY
(2021)
Article
Psychology, Mathematical
Matthew Hudson, Toby Nicholson, Anna Kharko, Rebecca McKenzie, Patric Bach
Summary: This study suggests that individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) have difficulty inferring intentions from observed behavior, and only exhibit perceptual biases when intentions are explicitly presented independent of the stimulus itself, rather than being inferred from inherent cues in the stimulus.
PSYCHONOMIC BULLETIN & REVIEW
(2021)
Editorial Material
Neurosciences
Sanjay Kumar, Patric Bach, Dimitrios Kourtis
FRONTIERS IN HUMAN NEUROSCIENCE
(2021)
Article
Psychology, Biological
Eleanor Ward, Giorgio Ganis, Katrina L. McDonough, Patric Bach
Summary: This study investigated whether participants' ability to make active body movements plays a causal role in visual perspective taking. The results showed that restricting participants' ability to make active body movements did not influence their understanding of another's visual perspective, suggesting that postural adjustments made when judging from another's perspective may be a bodily consequence of mentally transforming one's actual position in space.
QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY
(2022)
Editorial Material
Neurosciences
Anila M. D'Mello, Patric Bach, Philip R. R. Corlett, Liron Rozenkrantz
FRONTIERS IN HUMAN NEUROSCIENCE
(2022)
Article
Psychology, Experimental
Patric Bach, Cornelia Frank, Wilfried Kunde
Summary: The connection between imagery and overt action is not due to the motoric nature of imagery itself, but rather because action planning inherently involves imagination and focuses on the desired perceptual effects.
PSYCHOLOGICAL RESEARCH-PSYCHOLOGISCHE FORSCHUNG
(2022)
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Katrina L. McDonough, Patric Bach
Summary: Humans tend to interpret others' actions as intentional and goal directed. The predictive processing theory suggests that this tendency is mediated by predicting an ideal energy-efficient trajectory with which a rational actor would achieve their goals. Hudson and colleagues conducted experiments and found that judgments of hands reaching for objects were biased towards the expected efficient trajectories. The perception of straight reaches increased when an obstacle needed to be overcome, while unnecessary high reaches over empty space were perceptually flattened. These findings have important implications for understanding social perception.
ROYAL SOCIETY OPEN SCIENCE
(2023)
Article
Psychology, Experimental
Eleanor Ward, Giorgio Ganis, Katrina L. McDonough, Patric Bach
Article
Psychology, Experimental
James Colton, Patric Bach, Ben Whalley, Christopher Mitchell
JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY-GENERAL
(2018)
Article
Psychology, Multidisciplinary
Nicholas Lange, Timothy J. Hollins, Patric Bach
FRONTIERS IN PSYCHOLOGY
(2017)