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tactile perception

This shows a hand holding a brain and another reaching out to touch it.

Featured Neuroscience Open Neuroscience Articles

·April 9, 2025·4 min read

How the Brain Separates Touch We Choose vs. Touch We Receive

Touch is a vital sense, yet the brain processes active and passive touch using distinct pathways. In mice, researchers found that different regions of the thalamus—the brain’s sensory hub—respond uniquely depending on whether the animal actively explored with its whiskers or passively received a touch.

Featured Neuroscience

·March 11, 2024·5 min read

Revolutionizing Softness Perception in Robotics

Researchers developed SORI, a groundbreaking Softness Rendering Interface that can accurately simulate the perception of softness, addressing a long-standing challenge in robotics. By distinguishing between cutaneous and kinesthetic cues, SORI can replicate the softness of various materials, from marshmallows to beating hearts, offering vast applications in medicine, deep-sea exploration, and robot-assisted agriculture. This innovation not only advances the field of robotics but also provides a novel way to digitally transfer the sensation of touch, bridging a gap in human-robot interaction.

Featured Neuroscience

·November 14, 2023·5 min read

Phantom Touch: VR Reveals New Insights in Human Perception

Researchers discovered a 'phantom touch illusion' in virtual reality (VR), where users feel sensations without physical contact. This study, involving 36 volunteers, demonstrated that participants experienced a tingling sensation when virtually touching their bodies.

Featured Neuroscience

·October 27, 2023·5 min read

Hair Follicles’ Hidden Role in Touch Sensation

A new study uncovered a previously unknown mechanism in hair follicles that allows us to detect touch. Previously, sensation was attributed only to nerve endings in the skin, but this study reveals that cells within hair follicles can also sense touch.

Featured Neuroscience

·September 26, 2023·6 min read

Unlocking the Mystery of Skin Tightness

Researchers unlocked the mechanism behind the tight feeling of our skin post-cleanse and its relief post-moisturization. The study shows how external products induce mechanical changes on the skin's surface, creating sensations we can feel.

Featured Neuroscience

·May 11, 2023·5 min read

Thought Power: Altering Tactile Perception With the Power of Imagination

Researchers have discovered that our beliefs, when strongly held, can actually change how we physically experience the world around us.

This shows a mouse grooming another mouse

Featured Neuroscience

·April 28, 2022·5 min read

Neural Pathway Key to Sensation of Pleasant Touch Identified

Researchers have identified a specific neural circuit and neuropeptide responsible for relaying the sensation of a pleasant touch from the skin to the brain.

Featured Neuroscience

·August 24, 2021·5 min read

Evoking the Sense of Touch Through Brain Implant Electrodes

Using minimally invasive brain implants, researchers evoked the sense of touch in patients who had lost tactile sensations. The technique could be used to restore tactile sensations to those with paralysis and neuropathy.

This shows a finger with a heatmap over the fingerprint area showing where the sensory neurons are

Featured Neuroscience

·March 15, 2021·3 min read

Fingerprints Enhance Our Sense of Touch

Sensory neurons in the fingertips are able to detect tactile stimuli at the scale of a single fingerprint ridge.

Featured Neuroscience Psychology

·January 9, 2020·3 min read

Food textures affect perceptions of healthiness

The texture of certain foods may impact how healthy people believe they are. Foods that have less explicitly textured surfaces are perceived to be tastier, but not healthier.

A person touching a screen is shown here

Featured Neuroscience Open Neuroscience Articles

·August 6, 2019·3 min read

How we perceive vibrations through touch

Regardless of receptor types, spiking patterns determine vibrotactile frequency perception. The findings challenge existing theories about how Pacinian receptor channels work together in response to vibrotactile stimulation.