SENSORY FUNCTIONS OF THE SKIN OF HUMANS

SENSORY FUNCTIONS OF THE SKIN OF HUMANS

SENSORY FUNCTIONS OF THE SKIN OF HUMANS EDITED BY DAN R. KENSHALO Florida State University Tallahassee, Florida PLENUM PRESS NEW YORK AND LONDON

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data International Symposium on the Skin Senses, 2d, Florida State University, 1978. Sensory function of the skin of humans. Includes index. 1. Senses and sensation - Congresses. 2. Skin Innervation - Congresses. I. Kenshalo, Dan R. II. Title. QP450.157 1978 612'.88 79-22582 ISBN-13: 978-1-4613-3041-7 001: 1 0.1 007/978-1-4613-3039-4 e-isbn-13: 978-1-4613-3039-4 Proceedings of the Second International Symposium on Skin Senses, held at Florida State University, Tallahassee, Florida, June 5-7, 1978. 1979 Plenum Press, New York Softcover reprint of the hardcover 15t edition 1979 A Division of Plenum Publishing Corporation 227 West 17th Street, New York, N.Y. 10011 All rights reserved No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the Publisher

Preface This volume represents the Proceedings of the Second International Symposium on Skin Senses held on the campus of Florida State University, Tallahassee, Florida. The symposium was held on June 5 through 7, 1978, in honor of Professor Yngve Zotterrnan to commemorate his 80th birthday and his more than 50 years of energetic involvement in physiological and psychophysical problems of cutaneous, gustatory, and olfactory sensitivities. The First International Symposium on Skin Senses was intended to stimulate dialogues between electrophysiologists and psychophysicists in order to examine the mechanisms of cutaneous sensitivity by way of a multi-disciplinary approach. The 12 years since that meeting has seen much progress in the morphology, electrophysiology, and taxonomy of cutaneous receptors. There has been a growing awareness among psychophysicists that, not only are psychometric threshold functions of importance, but descriptions of the growth of sensations to suprathreshold stimuli are of at least equal importance. One of the most exciting recent events has been the development of a technique that permits recording activity in single primary afferent nerve fibers by poking a microelectrode through the skin into a nerve bundle--microneurography. This development allows one to conduct psychophysical measurements of sensation and, at the same time, to sample the primary neural activity associated with the same stimuli. The aim of this symposium was to bring together psychophysicists and microneurographers in order to explore the power and the limitations of such an approach when applied to the cutaneous senses. This symposium was supported by National Institutes of Mental Health Granx MHl1218 and Florida State University. Dan R. Kenshalo August 13, 1979 v

Welcoming Address R. S. Spivey How it Started: A Personal Review Y. Zotterman 1 5 Psychophysical and Neurophysiological Methods to Study Patients with Sensory Disturbances 23 R. G. Hallin, U. Lindblom and Z. Wiesenfeld Precision and Ambiguity in Coding Vibrotactile Information 39 O. Franzen and E. Torebjork Cues Supporting Recognition of the Orientation or Direction of Movement of Tactile Stimuli 63 W. R. Gould, C. J. Vierck, Jr., and M. M. Luck The Coding of Direction of Tactile Stimulus Movement: Correlative Psychophysical and Electrophysiological Data 79 B. L. Whitsel, D. A. Dreyer, M. Hollins and M. G. Young Somatosensory Potentials in Humans Evoked by Both Mechanical Stimulation of the Skin and Electrical Stimulation of the Nerve H. Pratt, R. N. Amlie and A. Starr Tactile Afferent Units with Small and Well Demarcated Receptive Fields in the Glabrous Skin A r e of ~ the Human Hand R. S. Johansson 109 129

Psychophysical Measurements of Enhancement, Suppression, and Surface Gradient Effects in Vibrotaction 153 R. T. Verrillo and G. A. Gescheider Vibrotactile Frequency Characteristics as Determined by Adaptation and Masking Procedures 183 G. A. Gescheider and R. T. Verrillo Thermo-Tactile Interactions: Some Influences of Temperature on Touch 207 J. C. Stevens Thermo-Tactile Interactions: Thermal Localization B. G. Green Effects of Touch on 223 The Neural Basis of the Sensory Quality of Warmth F. Konietzny and H. Hensel Problems of Correlating Cutaneous Sensation with Neural Events in Man H. Hensel and F. Konietzny Touch and Thermal Sensations: Psychophysical Observations and Unit Activity in Human Skin Nerves T. Jarvilehto and H. Hamalainen Coincidence and Cause: A Discussion on Correlations Between Activity in Primary Afferents and Perceptive Experience in Cutaneous Sensibility X. B. Vallbo and R. S. Johansson Activity in C Nociceptors and Sensation H. E. Torebjork Intensive and Temporal Determinants of Thermal Pain R. H. LaMotte Average Evoked Potentials and Sensory Experience S. W. Harkins and W. K. Dong Burning and Second Pain: An Alternative Interpretation S. Croze and R. Duclaux General Discussion Contributors and Invited Participants Author Index Subject Index 241 261 279 299 313 327 363 385 395 415 419 429