NEURAL MECHANISMS OF CUTANEOUS SENSE

Abstract

This critical review stresses the more important recent developments. Of these, the 2 most significant are (1) the extent to which the quality of sensation is detd. by the temporal and spatial patterns of stimulation even when limited as strictly as possible to a single class of receptors; and (2) the principle that localization is detd. by patterns of stimulation involving an overlapping series of units both at the receptor level and at internuncial points of convergence. Although the parallelism of reflex and sensory phenomena is stressed, curiously enough the principle of inhibition is not invoked in spite of its obvious relation to many of the phenomena discussed.