Wearable haptic and robotic devices must transmit useful forces and tactile information without remaining perceptually intrusive. Here we show that perceived weight provides a behavioral marker of thi...

Wearable haptic and robotic devices must transmit useful forces and tactile information without remaining perceptually intrusive. Here we show that perceived weight provides a behavioral marker of thi...

Recent work discovers three distinct stages of adjustment.

There is evidence that the sensorimotor system builds fine-grained spatial maps of the limbs based on somatosensory signals. Can a hand-held tool be m…

Een dag vol interactieve belevenissen van spannende escape rooms en illusies tot live demonstraties, talks en experimenten – voor jong en oud.

The brain computes the spatiotopic position of touch by integrating tactile and proprioceptive signals (i.e., tactile remapping). While it is often assumed that the spatiotopic touch location is mappe...

The brain localizes touch in space by integrating tactile and proprioceptive signals, a process known as tactile remapping. While it is often assumed that the remapped touch is encoded in an extrinsic, limb-independent reference frame, an alternative view proposes that touch may instead be represented within an intrinsic, limb-specific coordinate system. To test these hypotheses, we used electroencephalography (EEG) and a novel tactile stimulation paradigm in which participants received touch on their hands positioned at various locations relative to the body. Previous findings suggest that neural activity in primate sensorimotor and parietal regions monotonically encodes limb position. We therefore analyzed amplitude gradients in somatosensory evoked potentials (SEPs) to test predictions from each coding scheme. If touch is coded extrinsically, neural gradients should reflect changes of the external stimulus location, regardless of the limb. If coded intrinsically, gradients should be tied to the position of each limb and mirror each other between hands. Both univariate and multivariate EEG analyses found no evidence for extrinsic coding. Instead, we observed neural signatures of limb-specific, intrinsic spatial codes, the earliest emerging about 160 ms after touch in centro-parietal regions, later shifting to fronto-temporal and parieto-occipital areas. Furthermore, a population-based neural network model of tactile remapping successfully reproduced the observed gradient patterns. These results show that the human brain localizes touch using an intrinsic, limb-specific spatial code, challenging the dominant assumption of extrinsic encoding in tactile remapping. ### Competing Interest Statement The authors have declared no competing interest. NWO, NWO-SGW-406.21.GO.009, Interreg NWE-RE:HOME, NWA-ORC-1292.19.298 ERC, ERC 101076991 SOMATOGPS

How does the brain integrate artificial body extensions into its somatosensory representation? While prior work has shown that tool use alters body representation, little is known about how artificial...

The brain localizes touch in space by integrating tactile and proprioceptive signals, a process known as tactile remapping. While it is often assumed that the remapped touch is encoded in an extrinsic...