RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Touch inhibits touch: sanshool-induced paradoxical tingling reveals perceptual interference between somatosensory submodalities
JF bioRxiv
FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
SP 2020.11.21.391458
DO 10.1101/2020.11.21.391458
A1 Antonio Cataldo
A1 Nobuhiro Hagura
A1 Yousef Hyder
A1 Patrick Haggard
YR 2020
UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2020/11/22/2020.11.21.391458.abstract
AB Human perception of touch is mediated by inputs from multiple channels. Classical theories postulate independent contributions of each channel to each tactile feature, with little or no interaction between channels. In contrast to this view, we show that inputs from two sub-modalities of mechanical input channels interact to determine tactile perception. The flutter-range vibration channel was activated anomalously using hydroxy-α-sanshool, a bioactive compound of Szechuan pepper, which chemically induces tingling sensations. We tested whether this tingling sensation on the lips was modulated by sustained mechanical pressure. Across four experiments, we show that sustained touch inhibits sanshool tingling sensations in a location-specific, pressure-level and time-dependent manner. Additional experiments ruled out mediation of nociceptive or affective (C-tactile) channels underlying this interaction. These results reveal novel inhibitory influence from steady-pressure onto flutter-range tactile perceptual channels, consistent with early-stage interactions between mechanoreceptor inputs within the somatosensory pathway.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.