Frequency Shapes the Quality of Tactile Percepts Evoked through Electrical Stimulation of the Nerves
Abstract
Electrical stimulation of the peripheral nerves of human participants provides a unique opportunity to study the neural determinants of perceptual quality using a causal manipulation. A major challenge in the study of neural coding of touch has been to isolate the role of spike timing—at the scale of milliseconds or tens of milliseconds—in shaping the sensory experience. In the present study, we address this question by systematically varying the pulse frequency (PF) of electrical stimulation pulse trains delivered to the peripheral nerves of seven participants with upper and lower extremity limb loss via chronically implanted neural interfaces. We find that increases in PF lead to systematic increases in perceived frequency, up to ∼50 Hz, at which point further changes in PF have little to no impact on sensory quality. Above this transition frequency, ratings of perceived frequency level off, the ability to discriminate changes in PF is abolished, and verbal descriptors selected to characterize the sensation change abruptly. We conclude that sensation quality is shaped by temporal patterns of neural activation, even if these patterns are imposed on a fixed neural population, but this temporal patterning can only be resolved up to ∼50 Hz. These findings highlight the importance of spike timing in shaping the quality of a sensation and will contribute to the development of encoding strategies for conveying touch feedback through bionic hands and feet.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Pub Defense Publication
- Publication Date
- Jan 24, 2022
- Source ID
- 10.1523/jneurosci.1494-21.2021
Entities
People
- Breanne P Christie
- Dustin J. Tyler
- Emily L Graczyk
- Qinpu He
- Sliman Bensmaia
Organizations
- National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke