title: Water-induced finger wrinkles do not affect touch acuity or dexterity in handling wet objects.
abstract: Human non-hairy (glabrous) skin of the fingers, palms and soles wrinkles after prolonged exposure to water. Wrinkling is a sympathetic nervous system-dependent process but little is known about the physiology and potential functions of water-induced skin wrinkling. Here we investigated the idea that wrinkling might improve handling of wet objects by measuring the performance of a large cohort of human subjects (n = 40) in a manual dexterity task. We also tested the idea that skin wrinkling has an impact on tactile acuity or vibrotactile sensation using two independent sensory tasks. We found that skin wrinkling did not improve dexterity in handling wet objects nor did it affect any aspect of touch sensitivity measured. Thus water-induced wrinkling appears to have no significant impact on tactile driven performance or dexterity in handling wet or dry objects.
authors.affiliation: Department of Neuroscience, Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine, Berlin-Buch, Germany.
authors.forename: Julia
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Haseleu
authors.affiliation: Department of Neuroscience, Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine, Berlin-Buch, Germany.
authors.forename: Damir
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Omerbašić
authors.affiliation: Department of Neuroscience, Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine, Berlin-Buch, Germany.
authors.forename: Henning
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Frenzel
authors.affiliation: Department of Audiology and Phoniatrics, Charité Universitätsmedizin, Berlin, Germany.
authors.forename: Manfred
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Gross
authors.affiliation: Department of Neuroscience, Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine, Berlin-Buch, Germany.
authors.forename: Gary R
authors.initials: GR
authors.lastname: Lewin
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D005385:Fingers; D006801:Humans; D007101:Immersion; D008297:Male; D012867:Skin / Q000187:drug effects; D015595:Skin Aging / Q000187:drug effects* / Q000502:physiology; D013564:Sympathetic Nervous System / Q000187:drug effects / Q000502:physiology; D013647:Task Performance and Analysis; D014110:Touch / Q000187:drug effects / Q000502:physiology; D055698:Touch Perception / Q000187:drug effects* / Q000502:physiology; D014867:Water / Q000494:pharmacology*
chemical_list: D014867:Water