Spinal signalling of C-fiber mediated pleasant touch in humans

Abbreviations: NRS, Numeric rating score 0–100. Age is displayed as a range to limit indirect identifiers.

(a) Summary of thermal threshold and discriminative touch sensation testing in the pre-cordotomy and post-cordotomy states. Significant differences (Related-Samples Wilcoxon Signed Rank Test) be-tween the pre-cordotomy and post-cordotomy states are marked with asterisks and show ****p<0.0005. Abbreviations: CDT, Cold Detection Threshold; WDT, Warm Detection Threshold; CPT, Cold Pain Threshold; HPT, Heat Pain Threshold; MDT, Mechanical Detection Threshold; TPD, Two-Point Discrimination; NRS, Numeric Rating Scale; IQR, Interquartile Range; SD, Standard Deviation. (b) Summary of three-way repeated measure ANOVA for the effects of velocity, side (control versus pain affected) and time (pre-cordotomy versus post-cordotomy) on pleasantness ratings, intensity ratings, negative quadratic term and intercept.

(a) List of sensory and emotional descriptors used in the Touch Perception Task. (b) Sensory descriptors factor analysis Three significant factors were found in the emotional descriptors data (those contributing >5% of the variance; detailed in the Materials and methods) and named Texture, Pile, Heat and Slip. The descriptors and their significant loadings (>0.3) are shown for both the regression (pattern matrix) and the correlation (structure matrix) factor analysis output. (c) Emotional descriptors factor analysis Three significant factors were found in the emotional descriptors data (those contributing >5% of the variance; detailed in the Materials and methods) and named Positive Affect, Arousal and Negative Affect. The descriptors and their significant loadings (>0.3) are shown for both the regression (pattern matrix) and the correlation (structure matrix) factor analysis output.