the effect of surface wave propagation on neural responses to vibration in primate glabrous skin表面波传播的影响在灵长类动物的神经反应振动无毛的皮肤.pdfVIP

The Effect of Surface Wave Propagation on Neural Responses to Vibration in Primate Glabrous Skin 1 2 3 1 1 Louise R. Manfredi , Andrew T. Baker , Damian O. Elias , John F. Dammann III , Mark C. Zielinski , 2 1 Vicky S. Polashock , Sliman J. Bensmaia * 1 Department of Organismal Biology and Anatomy, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, United States of America, 2 Kimberly-Clark Corporation, Roswell, Georgia, United States of America, 3 Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, California, United States of America Abstract Because tactile perception relies on the response of large populations of receptors distributed across the skin, we seek to characterize how a mechanical deformation of the skin at one location affects the skin at another. To this end, we introduce a novel non-contact method to characterize the surface waves produced in the skin under a variety of stimulation conditions. Specifically, we deliver vibrations to the fingertip using a vibratory actuator and measure, using a laser Doppler vibrometer, the surface waves at different distances from the locus of stimulation. First, we show that a vibration applied to the fingertip travels at least the length of the finger and that the rate at which it decays is dependent on stimulus frequency. Furthermore, the resonant frequency of the skin matches the frequency at which a subpopulation of afferents, namely Pacinian afferents, is most sensitive. We show that this skin resonance can lead to a two-fold increase in the strength of the response of a simulated afferent pop