Sep 22nd 2014, 00:00, by Hannes P. Saal, Sliman J. Bensmaia
If one opens a neuroscience textbook to the somatosensory chapter, one is likely to find a table that ascribes a different function to each afferent: one afferent population mediates shape and texture perception, another motion perception, a further one skin stretch perception, and the last vibration perception (Figure 1A). This segregation of function was most eloquently articulated by Kenneth Johnson in a series of review papers [1–3], illustrating this point using results from his elegant studies on texture perception.
