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The perception of touch and the ventral somatosensory pathway.

  • Preusser S 1 Department of Neurology, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany.
  • Thiel SD 1 Department of Neurology, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany 2 Department of Psychology, Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences II, Humboldt-University, Berlin, Germany.
  • Rook C 3 Department of Cognitive Neurology, University Hospital Leipzig, Leipzig, Germany.
  • Roggenhofer E 1 Department of Neurology, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany 3 Department of Cognitive Neurology, University Hospital Leipzig, Leipzig, Germany 4 Laboratoire de Recherche en Neuroimagerie - LREN, Departement des neurosciences cliniques, Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Vaudois (CHUV), Mont Paisible 16, 1011 Lausanne, Switzerland.
  • Kosatschek A 1 Department of Neurology, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany.
  • Draganski B 4 Laboratoire de Recherche en Neuroimagerie - LREN, Departement des neurosciences cliniques, Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Vaudois (CHUV), Mont Paisible 16, 1011 Lausanne, Switzerland.
  • Blankenburg F 5 Berlin School of Mind and Brain and Mind and Brain Institute, Charité and Humboldt-University Berlin, Germany 6 Department of Education and Psychology, Neurocomputation and Neuroimaging Unit, Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany.
  • Driver J 7 University College London Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, London, UK.
  • Villringer A 1 Department of Neurology, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany 3 Department of Cognitive Neurology, University Hospital Leipzig, Leipzig, Germany 5 Berlin School of Mind and Brain and Mind and Brain Institute, Charité and Humboldt-University Berlin, Germany 8 Centre for Stroke Research Berlin, Charité, Berlin, Germany.
  • Pleger B 1 Department of Neurology, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany 3 Department of Cognitive Neurology, University Hospital Leipzig, Leipzig, Germany bpleger@cbs.mpg.de.
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  • 2014-12-27
Published in:
  • Brain : a journal of neurology. - 2015
lesion symptom mapping
perception
somatosensory cortex
touch
ventral somatosensory pathway
Adolescent
Adult
Aged
Brain Injuries
Brain Mapping
Female
Functional Laterality
Humans
Image Processing, Computer-Assisted
Magnetic Resonance Imaging
Male
Middle Aged
Neural Pathways
Neurologic Examination
Perceptual Disorders
Somatosensory Cortex
Statistics, Nonparametric
Touch
Young Adult
English In humans, touching the skin is known to activate, among others, the contralateral primary somatosensory cortex on the postcentral gyrus together with the bilateral parietal operculum (i.e. the anatomical site of the secondary somatosensory cortex). But which brain regions beyond the postcentral gyrus specifically contribute to the perception of touch remains speculative. In this study we collected structural magnetic resonance imaging scans and neurological examination reports of patients with brain injuries or stroke in the left or right hemisphere, but not in the postcentral gyrus as the entry site of cortical somatosensory processing. Using voxel-based lesion-symptom mapping, we compared patients with impaired touch perception (i.e. hypoaesthesia) to patients without such touch impairments. Patients with hypoaesthesia as compared to control patients differed in one single brain cluster comprising the contralateral parietal operculum together with the anterior and posterior insular cortex, the putamen, as well as subcortical white matter connections reaching ventrally towards prefrontal structures. This finding confirms previous speculations on the 'ventral pathway of somatosensory perception' and causally links these brain structures to the perception of touch.
Language
  • English
Open access status
bronze
Identifiers
Persistent URL
https://sonar.ch/global/documents/265260
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