Neural correlates of somatosensory target detection are restricted to secondary somatosensory cortex, whereas activity in insular, cingulate, and motor regions reflects stimulus uncertainty and overt reports.
A combination of human imaging and brain stimulation techniques show that the somatosensory cortex is essential to prosocial decision making, by transforming observed pain in accurate perception of others' distress.
Peripheral injury induces a programmed but reversible transformation of gene expression in somatosensory neurons providing a mechanism to regulate sensory input during wound healing.
Area 2 of somatosensory cortex represents kinematic details of the entire arm during movement, but this mapping from limb state to neural activity differs for reaching and passive limb displacement.
A combination of 7 tesla fMRI and psychophysics revealed the reorganisation of the human somatosensory cortex and changes in tactile perceptual abilities after just 24 hours of altered hand use.
Electrical microstimulation of human somatosensory cortex elicited purely naturalistic proprioceptive and cutaneous sensations, with proprioceptive sensations more prominent at higher current amplitudes suggesting a relationship between amplitude and sensation type.
The somatosensory cortex doesn't integrate mixed bilateral inputs, as partially uncrossing projections from the whiskers duplicates their representation by segregating lateralized inputs from each side of the head.