title: Decoding pressure stimulation locations on the fingers from human neural activation patterns.
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.
authors.affiliation: aDepartment of Brain and Cognitive Engineering, Korea University, Seoul bDepartment of Biomedical Engineering, Konkuk University, Chungju cDepartment of Human Factors Engineering, Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology, Ulsan, Republic of Korea dDepartment of Human Perception, Cognition and Action, Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Tübingen, Germany.
authors.forename: Junsuk
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.forename: Yoon Gi
authors.initials: YG
authors.lastname: Chung
authors.forename: Soon-Cheol
authors.initials: SC
authors.lastname: Chung
authors.forename: Heinrich H
authors.initials: HH
authors.lastname: Bülthoff
authors.forename: Sung-Phil
authors.initials: SP
authors.lastname: Kim
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001921:Brain / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging / Q000502:physiology*; D001931:Brain Mapping; D005260:Female; D005385:Fingers; D006801:Humans; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D010100:Oxygen / Q000097:blood; D011312:Pressure; D016683:Supine Position; D055815:Young Adult
chemical_list: D010100:Oxygen