PEc is an area defined on cytoarchitectural grounds, located in the posterior part of the superior parietal lobule of macaque brain (Pandya and Seltzer, 1982). The aim of this work was to assess whether passive somatosensory stimulation elicited responses in PEc neurons. Extracellular recordings were performed in three awake Macaca fascicularis. Passive somatosensory stimulation was performed i...

Some theories of motor control suggest efference-copies of motor commands reach somatosensory cortices. Here we used functional magnetic resonance imaging to test these models. We varied the amount of efference-copy signal by making participants squeeze a soft material either actively or passively. We found electromyographical recordings, an efference-copy proxy, to predict activity in primary ...

We recorded neuromagnetic responses of the second somatosensory cortex in healthy humans. Cutaneous electrical stimulation of fingers elicited a response around 100 ms, with a field pattern agreeing with activation of the second somatosensory cortex in the upper bank of the Sylvian fissure. In an oddball paradigm, with standards presented to the thumb and deviants (10%) to the middle finger, or...

Cerebral processing of first pain, associated with A-delta fibers, has been studied intensively, but the cerebral processing associated with C-fibers, relating to second pain, remains to be investigated. We selectively activated C-fibers by the stimulation of a tiny area of skin with a CO2 laser. As for the primary component (1M), in the hemisphere contralateral to the stimulation, two regions ...

The aim of this study was to assess whether neurones of area V6A, a part of Brodmann's area 19, are modulated by passive somatosensory stimulations. Extracellular activity was recorded in four awake while passive tactile stimulations of the skin and passive rotations of the joints were performed in complete darkness and under eye movement control. Out of 240 V6A units, 78 (32%) were modulated b...

Caudal area PE (PEc) of the macaque posterior parietal cortex has been shown to be a crucial node in visuomotor coordination during reaching. The present study was aimed at studying visual and somatosensory organization of this cortical area. Visual stimulations activated 53% of PEc neurons. The overwhelming majority (89%) of these visual cells were best activated by a dark stimulus on a lighte...

A growing body of work suggests that sensory processes may also contribute to affective experience. In this study, we performed a meta-analysis of affective experiences driven through visual, auditory, olfactory, gustatory, and somatosensory stimulus modalities including study contrasts that compared affective stimuli to matched neutral control stimuli. We found, first, that limbic and paralimb...