Decoding pressure stimulation locations on the fingers from human neural activation patterns

Junsuk Kim, Yoon Gi Chung, Soon Cheol Chung, Heinrich H. Bülthoff, Sung Phil Kim

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    7 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    In this functional MRI study, we investigated how the human brain activity represents tactile location information evoked by pressure stimulation on fingers. Using the searchlight multivoxel pattern analysis, we looked for local activity patterns that could be decoded into one of four stimulated finger locations. The supramarginal gyrus (SMG) and the thalamus were found to contain distinct multivoxel patterns corresponding to individual stimulated locations. In contrast, the univariate general linear model analysis contrasting stimulation against resting phases for each finger identified activations mainly in the primary somatosensory cortex (S1), but not in SMG or in thalamus. Our results indicate that S1 might be involved in the detection of the presence of pressure stimuli, whereas the SMG and the thalamus might play a role in identifying which finger is stimulated. This finding may provide additional evidence for hierarchical information processing in the human somatosensory areas.

    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)1232-1236
    Number of pages5
    JournalNeuroreport
    Volume27
    Issue number16
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 2016 Nov 1

    Bibliographical note

    Publisher Copyright:
    © 2016 Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc.

    Keywords

    • functional MRI
    • hierarchical somatosensory processing
    • multivoxel pattern analysis
    • pressure stimulus

    ASJC Scopus subject areas

    • General Neuroscience

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