Tactile Body Research Articles

Body Tactile Stimulation Reduces the Effects of High Stocking Density on the Welfare of Nile Tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus)

High stocking density is used in aquaculture to optimize farming. However, such strategies can stress territorial fish by increasing aggression, thus harming the fish welfare and productive performance. Here, we tested the effect of long-term tactile body stimulation (TS) on alleviating the impact of high stocking density in Nile tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus). Ten males were grouped for 21 days into four treatments (10 replicates each one) combining TS with high (1.2 kg·m³) or low (0.6 kg·m³) densities: (1) without TS and high density; (2) without TS and low density; (3) with TS and high density; and (4) with TS and low density. A rectangular PVC frame fitted with vertical plastic sticks sided with silicone bristles was placed in the center of aquarium. The fish receive TS when passing through the bristles. An apparatus without bristles was used as control. We found higher cortisol levels under TS conditions. All parameters of productive performance (growth, food efficiency, and condition factor) were higher in the treatment with TS and low density, lower in the treatment without TS and high density, and similar between treatments high density with TS and low density without TS. The results suggest that TS improves productive performance of Nile tilapia, counteracting the negative effects of high stocking density.

Is the long head of the biceps related to anterior shoulder pain? A histopathological study

Objectives. Pathologies of the long head of the biceps have been viewed as a source of anterior shoulder pain and disability. Thus, we performed a histopathological and immunohistochemical examination of the biceps tendon with regard to the neuronal structure, the number of mechano[1]receptors and immunohistochemical types, to investigate the relationship of these factors with pain. Materials and Methods. This is a single-center prospective comparative study, on 11 patients divided into Group A (n=5) and Group B (n=6). Patients who underwent arthroplasty due to Neer type[1]4 proximal humeral fractures were selected as the control group (Group A). Group B consisted of patients with chronic anterior shoulder pain who underwent subpectoral biceps tenodesis during arthroscopic rotator cuff repair. The long head of biceps tenodesis was performed in all patients. Results. Hyalinization in the tendon was observed in 2 patients of group B. Chondroid degeneration was found in one patient with hyalinization. Inflammation, calcification, or matrix formation were not detected in any patients. Normal nerve fibers were observed around the tendon in 9 patients with S-100 immunohistochemical staining. In 1 patient, weak staining was observed in the nerve sheath with EMA immunohistochemical stain. No tactile body was detected. Conclusions. We did not observe any histo[1]pathological findings that could be considered the cause of pain in the two groups. Biomolecular and biomechanical studies, in addition to microscopic studies, are needed to explain why the biceps is a potential source of pain.

Application of Traditional Graphic Elements Based on Fiber Bragg Grating Tactile Sensor Technology

In today’s era, sensing technology has been very developed in the fields of machinery, medicine, safety monitoring, and so on. In order to be applicable to more fields, new sensing technologies are also evolving. Tactile and sensory states are two important indicators of human induction to external things. Based on the contact force information between fiber Bragg grating tactile sensor and human body, this paper uses a new fiber Bragg grating tactile sensing system to study the artistic elements of ink painting in modern graphic design. Subsequently, the structure and specific performances of the sensor experimental data are analyzed. With its small volume, low cost, high sensitivity, and good compatibility with the observed body, the new fiber Bragg grating tactile sensor will not be affected by external electromagnetic interference, various noise signals, complex integration, and other problems. According to the data observed by ink painters in this paper, the new tactile sensing technology of fiber Bragg grating can well control the external interference factors. In general, the technology is of great social and practical value.

The protocol for positive body experience (PBE); introducing a psychomotor therapy intervention based on positive body exposure targeting negative body image in eating disorders

ABSTRACT Negative body experience is a core characteristic of eating disorders, and poses a serious risk factor for its development, maintenance and relapse. This underlines the importance of specific therapeutic attention to body experience. In the past ten years a body-oriented treatment protocol with the focus on positive body exposure, called ‘Protocol Positive body experience’ has been developed. The aim of this paper is to describe the scientific basis of the protocol and to give an impression of its content and structure, illustrated by clinical case vignettes. An important and innovative aspect of the protocol is to enhance not only aesthetic, but also functional and tactile body experience. The protocol enables body-oriented therapists and psychomotor therapists to treat negative body experience in an evidence-based way and facilitates further research to validate the effect of positive body exposure.

Karl Bühler’s Fantasmatic Deixis Between Motion, Gestures, and Words

Summary What is the “fantasmatic deixis”? It is a very creative and productive cognitive–linguistic operation that allows a “transfer” to other real or fantastic times, places, and “worlds”. The underlying psychological question concerns the possibility of moving and being moved with respect to something or someone who is absent (Bühler, 1965). This “fiction game” is made possible by deictic indicators (Tenchini, 2008), terms that allow motion in time and space, always considering the here–now–I system of subjective orientation. When we refer to something that can be gathered by hearing or by sight, by terms such as here, there, I, and you, the receiver can easily use natural, prelinguistic aids (e.g., gestures, voice quality, facial expressions, and body orientation) to understand what the issuer intends to communicate to him (demonstratio ad oculos). But what happens when we move from the study of “immediate” behavior to that of “mediate” behavior, i.e., the field of memories (retrospection) or the constructive fantasy (prospecting)? The fantasmatic deixis implies enfranchisement from the physical position of the body and requires the assumption of the listener’s current tactile body image. Thus, the receiver assumes an inner attitude to correctly interpret the indications given by the speaker, seeing and hearing through the “inner” or “mental” eye and ear (Raynaud, 2006). In this way, the listener can bring something absent in his/her here, now, and I or feel moved to the point where the speaker leads him/her. My paper will focus on the features and types of fantasmatic deixis, providing some examples and showing how this operation involves language, motion, and cognitive processes.

Body representation in infants: Categorical boundaries of body parts as assessed by somatosensory mismatch negativity

There is growing interest in developing and using novel measures to assess how the body is represented in human infancy. Various lines of evidence with adults and older children show that tactile perception is modulated by a high-level representation of the body. For instance, the distance between two points of tactile stimulation is perceived as being greater when these points cross a joint boundary than when they are within a body part, suggesting that the representation of the body is structured with joints acting as categorical boundaries between body parts. Investigating the developmental origins of this categorical effect has been constrained by infants’ inability to verbally report on the properties of tactile stimulation. Here we made novel use of an infant brain measure, the somatosensory mismatch negativity (sMMN), to explore categorical aspects of tactile body processing in infants aged 6–7 months. Amplitude of the sMMN elicited by tactile stimuli across the wrist boundary was significantly greater than for stimuli of equal distance that were within the boundary, suggesting a categorical effect in body processing in infants. We suggest that an early-appearing, structured representation of the body into ‘parts’ may play a role in mapping correspondences between self and other.

Localization of SMI‐32‐immunoreactive neurons in the brain of the naked mole‐rat (Heterocephalus glaber)

Naked mole‐rats (NMR; Heterocephalus glaber) are a unique species of eusocial burrowing rodents. As such, they are highly adapted for life underground, with an absence of visual cues. NMRs have evolved to use their tactile body hairs and their large, moveable lower incisors to provide information about stimuli in their tunnels. As interest in using NMR as a model system grows ‐ including increasing use as a mammalian model for cancer and aging studies ‐ there is demand for more information about their neuroanatomy, including brain chemoarchitecture. Herein, we describe the location of neurons found to be SMI‐32‐immunoreactive in the normal, adult NMR brain. Expression was found in the cerebral cortex, hippocampus, basal ganglia, thalamus, brainstem, cerebellum, and many other brain regions. Detailed comparisons of SMI‐32‐immunoreactivity with that found in laboratory rats (Rattus sp.) will be presented, including many of the similarities and differences noted between the two species. Interpretation of these differences will also be presented.This abstract is from the Experimental Biology 2019 Meeting. There is no full text article associated with this abstract published in The FASEB Journal.

Techniques of the tactile body: A cultural phenomenology of toddlers and mobile touchscreens

A key dimension of young children’s mobile media engagement and play centres on their embodied relations, and how these are shaped with and through the interfaces, materiality and mobility of haptic media. This article explores these embodied dimensions of young children’s mobile media use, drawing on research from (1) ethnographic observation of young children’s play practices in family homes, (2) analysis of videos of young children’s tactile media interaction shared on YouTube and (3) analysis of user interface (UI) and mobile app developer literature, such as the ‘Event Handling Guide for iOS’, which encodes touchscreen interaction through the design constraints and possibilities of gesture input techniques. Taking as its starting point Marcel Mauss’ famous reflection on body techniques, this article draws on past and present research on mobile technologies, tactility and everyday life, to explore what might be involved in developing a ‘cultural phenomenology’ of mobile touchscreens. This research and analysis reveals the emergence of what we term a haptic habitus or cultivation of embodied dispositions for touchscreen conduct and competence.

Body representation does not lag behind in updating for the pubertal growth spurt

Both making perceptual judgments about your own body and successfully moving your body through the world depend on a mental representation of the body. However, there are indications that moving might be challenging when your body is changing. For instance, the pubertal growth spurt has been reported to be negatively correlated to motor competence. A possible explanation for this clumsiness would be that when the body is growing fast, updating the body representation may lag behind, resulting in a mismatch between internal body representation and actual body size. The current study investigated this hypothesis by testing participants ranging from aged 6 to 50 years on both a tactile body image task and a motor body schema task. Separate groups of participants, including those in the age range when pubertal growth spurt occurs, were asked to estimate the distance between two simultaneously applied tactile stimuli on the arm and to move their hand through apertures of different widths. Tactile distance estimations were equal between participants before, during, and after the age range where the pubertal growth spurt is expected. Similarly, Bayesian evaluation of informative hypotheses showed that participants in the age range of the growth spurt did not move through the apertures as if their representation of the hand was smaller than its physical size. These results suggest that body representations do not lag behind in updating for the pubertal growth spurt.

Differences in tactile sensation and body composition between the front and back of the total body in healthy volunteers

The purpose of this study was to investigate the differences in the body composition and tactile sensation between the front and back of the total body. To confirm body composition and tactile sensation, a 4 pole-8 pole contacted electronic method and two-point discrimination (TPD) tool such as esthesiometer and 2-Point Discrim-A-Gon were used in 30 healthy male subjects. In analysis of body composition, the impedence of front/back of trunk was significantly lower than those of both front/back of upper and lower limb. Meanwhile, in analysis of tactile sensation, sensory of hands was the most sensitive than the other body parts. The palm side of metacarpals TPD was significantly lower than those of dorsal side of metacarpals. Furthermore, the front side of trunk, hands, thigh/shin, and feet TPD were significantly lower than those of back side of body parts. The front side of thigh and shin TPD were significantly lower than those of back side of both thigh and shin. Therefore, these results, in part, suggest that there was a difference in body composition and tactile sensation according to each segment of the total body.

Differences in tactile acuity and working body schema between musicians and non-musicians

Differences in tactile acuity and working body schema between musicians and non-musicians

Processing of Self versus Non-Self in Alzheimer's Disease.

Despite considerable evidence for abnormalities of self-awareness in Alzheimer’s disease (AD), the cognitive mechanisms of altered self-processing in AD have not been fully defined. Here we addressed this issue in a detailed analysis of self/non-self-processing in three patients with AD. We designed a novel neuropsychological battery comprising tests of tactile body schema coding, attribution of tactile events to self versus external agents, and memory for self- versus non-self-generated vocal information, administered in conjunction with a daily life measure of self/non-self-processing (the Interpersonal Reactivity Index). Three male AD patients (aged 54–68 years; one with a pathogenic mutation in the Presenilin 1 gene, one with a pathogenic mutation in the Amyloid Precursor Protein gene, and one with a CSF protein profile supporting underlying AD pathology) were studied in relation to a group of eight healthy older male individuals (aged 58–74 years). Compared to healthy controls, all patients had relatively intact tactile body schema processing. In contrast, all patients showed impaired memory for words previously presented using the patient’s own voice whereas memory for words presented in other voices was less consistently affected. Two patients showed increased levels of emotional contagion and reduced perspective taking on the Interpersonal Reactivity Index. Our findings suggest that AD may be associated with deficient self/non-self differentiation over time despite a relatively intact body image: this profile of altered self-processing contrasts with the deficit of tactile body schema previously described in frontotemporal dementia associated with C9orf72 mutations. We present these findings as a preliminary rationale to direct future systematic study in larger patient cohorts.

The two dimensions of the body representation in women suffering from Anorexia Nervosa

A core symptom of Anorexia Nervosa (AN) is a severe alteration of body representations. Evidence from somatoperception studies point to a generic disturbances of somatosensory components of body representations. Here we have investigated whether AN patients (N=18) and controls differed in the perception of tactile stimuli differently oriented along the body axes. We tested the hypothesis that patients perceive and represent their body selectively larger in only one dimension. To this aim we used elementary tactile measures for tactile acuity (Von Frey's test and two-point discrimination thresholds – 2PD) and tactile discrimination measures. The rationale is based on the assumption that AN patients have a wider body representation, and that tactile body representation tasks (Tactile Distance task) oriented across the bodies (horizontally) are influenced by distorted body representations compared with tactile stimuli oriented along the bodies (vertically) which should not be influenced by body representations. Results showed that patients judged horizontal tactile stimuli significantly wider than the same stimuli oriented vertically.These results suggest that human brain perceives things differently based on body representations and that the beliefs concerning body size influence the specific somatosensory process of tactile experience.

P.1.b.010 Expectation of tactile events and body ownership in schizophrenia: pharmacological correlates

P.1.b.010 Expectation of tactile events and body ownership in schizophrenia: pharmacological correlates

P 131. Repetitive TMS over the left posterior parietal cortex affects the regulation of body sway

During upright stance, skin contact with an earth-fixed referent provides tactile feedback about own body sway relative to the contact location. In this situation body sway variability is reduced compared to standing without contact. Recent studies on the time course of sway before, during and after periods of intermittent touch contact indicated that the stabilisation of sway is a time-consuming integrative process. In addition, it has been suggested that dorsolateral prefrontal cortex is involved in the processing of tactile feedback for the control of body sway. Using repetitive TMS, we aimed to investigate the influence of activity inhibition within the left posterior parietal cortex (PPC) as well as the left lateral prefrontal cortex (PFC) on the time course of sway stabilisation after the onset of finger tip contact as well as sway destabilisation after contact removal. We expected that PPC inhibition would disrupt the processing of tactile feedback for sway control indicated by more delayed and less strong sway reduction compared to PFC inhibition. In two sessions, separated by a week, 5 adult participants received 20 min of 1 Hz repetitive TMS stimulation at 110% passive motor threshold over the left PPC (CP3) and lateral PFC (F3) respectively. Before and after each stimulation interval, blind-folded and ear-plugged participants stood quietly on a force plate with their right forearm as well as fingers of the right hand reaching forward. In this posture, the fingers were held at hip level slightly above a contact plate of which its vertical position was controlled by a linear motor. Body sway was assessed in terms of Centre-of-Pressure (CoP) motion and trunk kinematics in the antero-posterior direction. Within each of six trials of 120 s duration, five pairs of touch onset and removal were timed at random intervals by driving the contact plate upwards until contact was established, respectively downwards until contact was safely removed. The minimum time period between subsequent onsets and removals was 7 s. Time course of sway was evaluated across 3 s before and after each contact event. As expected, sway reduction was attenuated as well as rate of sway stabilisation and destabilisation were lower after PPC inhibition. In addition, body sway was generally increased. In contrast, sway control with or without tactile feedback remained unaffected compared to both pre-stimulation baselines after lateral PFC stimulation. 1 Hz repetitive TMS over the left PPC disrupts the sensorimotor control of body balance as well as the sensory reorganization following onset and removal of tactile body sway-related feedback from the finger tips of the right hand.

1443 – Impaired multisensory integration and disruption of spatial references in anorexia nervosa

In anorexia nervosa (AN), body distortions have been associated with right parietal cortex (PC) dysfunction. The PC is the anatomical substrate for a supramodal reference framework involved in spatial orientation constancy. Our aim was to evaluate spatial orientation constancy and the perception of body posture in AN patients. In this case control study, the population consisted of 25 AN patients and 25 healthy controls. We investigated the effect of passive lateral body inclination on the visual and tactile subjective vertical (SV) and body Z-axis perception in each group. Subjects performed visual- and tactile- spatial judgments of axis orientations in an upright position and tilted 90° ckwise or counterclockwise. We observed a significant deviation of the tactile and visual SV towards the body (an A-effect) under tilted conditions, suggesting a multisensory spatial orientation deficit. Significant deviation of the Z-axis in the direction of the tilt was also observed in the AN group. The greatest A-effect in AN patients could reflect reduced interoceptive awareness and thus inadequate consideration of gravitational inflow. Furthermore, marked body weight loss could decrease the somatosensory inputs involved for spatial orientation. Our study results strengthen the role of PC in AN. These suggest that spatial references are impaired in AN, which could be due to disrupted multisensory integration in the PC such as visual, tactile, vestibular and somatosensory information.

Ctenocephalides felis felis (Bouché, 1835) e Rhipicephalus (Boophilus) microplus (Canestrini, 1887) em caprinos e ovinos no Município de Sinop, Mato Grosso, Brasil

Relata-se pela primeira vez a infestação de caprinos e ovinos por pulgas e carrapatos em propriedade rural do Município de Sinop, Mato Grosso, Brasil. Após inspeção visual e tátil da superfície corporal dos animais, os espécimes coletados foram levados ao laboratório para identificação utilizando chaves específicas. As pulgas, coletadas somente nos caprinos, pertenciam à espécie Ctenocephalides felis felis. Os carrapatos coletados nos caprinos e ovinos pertenciam à espécie Rhipicephalus (Boophilus) microplus.

Tactile body image disturbance in anorexia nervosa

Body image disturbances are central to anorexia nervosa (AN). Previous studies have focused mainly on attitudinal and visual aspects. Studies on somatosensory aspects thus far have been scarce. We therefore investigated whether AN patients and controls differed in tactile perception, and how this tactile body image related to visual body image and body dissatisfaction. The Tactile Estimation Task (TET) measured tactile body image: Two tactile stimuli were applied to forearm and abdomen, and, while blindfolded, participants estimated the distance between the two tactile stimuli between their thumb and index finger. The Distance Comparison Task (DCT) measured visual body image. Compared to controls (n=25), AN patients (n=20) not only visualized their body less accurately, but also overestimated distances between tactile stimuli on both the arm and abdomen, which might reflect a disturbance in both visual and tactile body image. High levels of body dissatisfaction were related to more severe inaccuracies in the visual mental image of the body, and overestimation of tactile distances. Our results imply that body image disturbances in AN are more widespread than previously assumed as they not only affect visual mental imagery, but also extend to disturbances in somatosensory aspects of body image.

Body and mind entwined: an 11-year-old perspective on ‘things’

Body and mind entwined: an 11-year-old perspective on ‘things’

1A2-L10 視覚観測困難な自己の顔の身体像におけるパーツ検出モデルの提案(認知ロボティクス)

1A2-L10 視覚観測困難な自己の顔の身体像におけるパーツ検出モデルの提案(認知ロボティクス)