TY - JOUR
T1 - Different activation signatures in the primary sensorimotor and higher-level regions for haptic three-dimensional curved surface exploration
AU - Yang, Jiajia
AU - Molfese, Peter J.
AU - Yu, Yinghua
AU - Handwerker, Daniel A.
AU - Chen, Gang
AU - Taylor, Paul A.
AU - Ejima, Yoshimichi
AU - Wu, Jinglong
AU - Bandettini, Peter A.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2021
PY - 2021/5/1
Y1 - 2021/5/1
N2 - Haptic object perception begins with continuous exploratory contact, and the human brain needs to accumulate sensory information continuously over time. However, it is still unclear how the primary sensorimotor cortex (PSC) interacts with these higher-level regions during haptic exploration over time. This functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study investigates time-dependent haptic object processing by examining brain activity during haptic 3D curve and roughness estimations. For this experiment, we designed sixteen haptic stimuli (4 kinds of curves × 4 varieties of roughness) for the haptic curve and roughness estimation tasks. Twenty participants were asked to move their right index and middle fingers along the surface twice and to estimate one of the two features—roughness or curvature—depending on the task instruction. We found that the brain activity in several higher-level regions (e.g., the bilateral posterior parietal cortex) linearly increased as the number of curves increased during the haptic exploration phase. Surprisingly, we found that the contralateral PSC was parametrically modulated by the number of curves only during the late exploration phase but not during the early exploration phase. In contrast, we found no similar parametric modulation activity patterns during the haptic roughness estimation task in either the contralateral PSC or in higher-level regions. Thus, our findings suggest that haptic 3D object perception is processed across the cortical hierarchy, whereas the contralateral PSC interacts with other higher-level regions across time in a manner that is dependent upon the features of the object.
AB - Haptic object perception begins with continuous exploratory contact, and the human brain needs to accumulate sensory information continuously over time. However, it is still unclear how the primary sensorimotor cortex (PSC) interacts with these higher-level regions during haptic exploration over time. This functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study investigates time-dependent haptic object processing by examining brain activity during haptic 3D curve and roughness estimations. For this experiment, we designed sixteen haptic stimuli (4 kinds of curves × 4 varieties of roughness) for the haptic curve and roughness estimation tasks. Twenty participants were asked to move their right index and middle fingers along the surface twice and to estimate one of the two features—roughness or curvature—depending on the task instruction. We found that the brain activity in several higher-level regions (e.g., the bilateral posterior parietal cortex) linearly increased as the number of curves increased during the haptic exploration phase. Surprisingly, we found that the contralateral PSC was parametrically modulated by the number of curves only during the late exploration phase but not during the early exploration phase. In contrast, we found no similar parametric modulation activity patterns during the haptic roughness estimation task in either the contralateral PSC or in higher-level regions. Thus, our findings suggest that haptic 3D object perception is processed across the cortical hierarchy, whereas the contralateral PSC interacts with other higher-level regions across time in a manner that is dependent upon the features of the object.
KW - Cortical hierarchy
KW - Haptic object perception
KW - Parametric modulation
KW - Primary motor cortex
KW - Primary somatosensory cortex
KW - fMRI
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85101031624&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2021.117754
DO - 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2021.117754
M3 - Article
C2 - 33454415
AN - SCOPUS:85101031624
SN - 1053-8119
VL - 231
JO - NeuroImage
JF - NeuroImage
M1 - 117754
ER -