Musical Haptics

Haptic Musical Instruments; Haptic Psychophysics; Interface Design and Evaluation; User Experience; Musical Performanc

Musical Haptics

Haptic Musical Instruments; Haptic Psychophysics; Interface Design and Evaluation; User Experience; Musical Performanc

Tactile Modulation of the Sensory and Cortical Responses Elicited by Focal Cooling in Humans and Mice

Distinct sensory receptors transduce thermal and mechanical energies, but we have unified, coherent thermotactile experiences of the objects we touch. These experiences must emerge from the interaction of thermal and tactile signals within the nervous system. How do thermal and mechanical signals modify each other as they interact along the pathway from skin to conscious experience? In this thesis, we study how mechanical touch modulates cooling responses by combining psychophysics in humans and neural recordings in rodents. For this, we developed a novel stimulator to deliver focal, temperature-controlled cooling without touch. First, we used this method to study in humans the sensitivity to focal cooling with and without touch. We found that touch reduces the sensitivity to near-threshold cooling, which is perhaps analogous to the well-established ‘gating’ of pain by touch. Second, we studied the perceived intensity of cooling with and without touch. We found that tactile input enhances the perceived intensity of cooling. Third, we measured the responses of the mouse primary somatosensory cortex to cooling and mechanical stimuli using imaging and electrophysiological methods. We found multisensory stimuli elicited non-linear cortical responses at both the population and cellular level. Altogether, in this thesis, we show perceptual and cortical responses to non-tactile cooling for the first time. Based on our observations, we propose a new model to explain the interactions between cooling and mechanical signals in the nervous system. This thesis advances our understanding of how touch modulates cold sensations during thermotactile stimulation

Cortical Diagnostics: Measuring Brain Health through Somatosensation

Over the past several years, a number of unique quantitative tactile based sensory testing methods were designed with the intent of obtaining objective metrics that would be sensitive to alterations in cortical information processing. The design of these tasks was based on information obtained from neurophysiological studies of the nonhuman primate (NHP) cerebral sensory cortical response to a variety of modes of natural skin stimulation, and these NHP studies typically exhibit characteristics of cortical modularity, or cortical-cortical dynamics that occur between adjacent and near-adjacent assemblies of cortical neurons. The initial goal of these studies was to demonstrate cortical correlates of perception by comparing observations of stimulus evoked activity in primary somatosensory cortex of non-human primates, and a secondary goal was to demonstrate that these measures of sensory perception were altered in a predictable fashion with neurological insult. To date, observations consistent with systemic cortical alterations have been made in individuals with neurotrauma (concussion/TBI, stroke), neurodevelopmental disorders (Autism, ADHD, Tourette's, OCD) and chronic pain (migraine, fibromyalgia, VVS, TMJD, carpal tunnel syndrome). One unifying theme of these findings is the role that cortical modularity plays in sensory information processing and that when cortical modularity is disrupted, significant quantifiable deficits in sensory information processing can be detected.Doctor of Philosoph

Haptics: Science, Technology, Applications

This open access book constitutes the proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Human Haptic Sensing and Touch Enabled Computer Applications, EuroHaptics 2020, held in Leiden, The Netherlands, in September 2020. The 60 papers presented in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected from 111 submissions. The were organized in topical sections on haptic science, haptic technology, and haptic applications. This year's focus is on accessibility

Musical Haptics

This Open Access book offers an original interdisciplinary overview of the role of haptic feedback in musical interaction. Divided into two parts, part I examines the tactile aspects of music performance and perception, discussing how they affect user experience and performance in terms of usability, functionality and perceived quality of musical instruments. Part II presents engineering, computational, and design approaches and guidelines that have been applied to render and exploit haptic feedback in digital musical interfaces. Musical Haptics introduces an emerging field that brings together engineering, human-computer interaction, applied psychology, musical aesthetics, and music performance. The latter, defined as the complex system of sensory-motor interactions between musicians and their instruments, presents a well-defined framework in which to study basic psychophysical, perceptual, and biomechanical aspects of touch, all of which will inform the design of haptic musical interfaces. Tactile and proprioceptive cues enable embodied interaction and inform sophisticated control strategies that allow skilled musicians to achieve high performance and expressivity. The use of haptic feedback in digital musical interfaces is expected to enhance user experience and performance, improve accessibility for disabled persons, and provide an effective means for musical tuition and guidance

Sensory Processing in Body-Focused Repetitive Behaviors

Body-focused repetitive behaviors (BFRBs) such as hair pulling and skin picking are common practices that are part of ordinary grooming, but can proliferate excessively into maladaptive habits. Despite their negative consequences, affected individuals often experience great difficulty in stopping pulling/picking and report strong urges and hedonic reward associated with symptoms. Unfortunately, the psychobiological mechanisms underlying sensory features of BFRBs have been insufficiently studied. The current study aimed to explore potential sensory processing abnormalities in adults with Trichotillomania and Excoriation Disorder using several self-reported instruments and a vibrotactile behavioral battery. A total of 46 adults with either Trichotillomania or Excoriation Disorder were recruited, along with an age-matched sample of 46 healthy control participants. Participants completed clinician-rated interviews regarding their symptom severity and self-report instruments regarding interoceptive awareness and sensory gating. The vibrotactile battery consisted of several tests that assessed reaction time, sensorimotor integration, detection threshold, feed-forward inhibition, lateral inhibition, temporal processing, and duration discrimination. Persons with BFRBs reported increased interoceptive awareness, a greater propensity to worry about their body states, and less trust in their own body. In addition, the BFRB group reported greater perceptual inundation, sensory distractability, overinclusion, and a propensity to experience sensory abnormalities while fatigued or distressed. Persons with BFRBs did not display behavioral deficits in sensorimotor integration, quickly adapting lateral inhibition, temporal processing, or duration discrimination. However, the BFRB group had lower tactile thresholds and deficient feed-forward inhibition. Deficient feed-forward inhibition was correlated with skin picking severity. These findings indicate that increased sensitivity to sensory stimuli and an inability to filter out excess sensory input is associated with a propensity to engage in BFRBs, perhaps as a method of distracting oneself from an aversive perceptual state

Haptics: Science, Technology, Applications

This open access book constitutes the proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Human Haptic Sensing and Touch Enabled Computer Applications, EuroHaptics 2020, held in Leiden, The Netherlands, in September 2020. The 60 papers presented in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected from 111 submissions. The were organized in topical sections on haptic science, haptic technology, and haptic applications. This year's focus is on accessibility

VALIDATION OF A MODEL OF SENSORIMOTOR INTEGRATION WITH CLINICAL BENEFITS

Healthy sensorimotor integration – or how our touch influences our movements – is critical to efficiently interact with our environment. Yet, many aspects of this process are still poorly understood. Importantly, several movement disorders are often considered as originating from purely motor impairments, while a sensory origin could also lead to a similar set of symptoms. To alleviate these issues, we hereby propose a novel biologically-based model of the sensorimotor loop, known as the SMILE model. After describing both the functional, and the corresponding neuroanatomical versions of the SMILE, we tested several aspects of its motor component through functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS). Both experimental studies resulted in coherent outcomes with respect to the SMILE predictions, but they also provided novel scientific outcomes about such broad topics as the sub-phases of motor imagery, the neural processing of bodily representations, or the extend of the role of the extrastriate body area. In the final sections of this manuscript, we describe some potential clinical application of the SMILE. The first one presents the identification of plausible neuroanatomical origins for focal hand dystonia, a yet poorly understood sensorimotor disorder. The last chapter then covers possible improvements on brain-machine interfaces, driven by a better understanding of the sensorimotor system. -- La façon dont votre sens du toucher et vos mouvements interagissent est connue sous le nom d’intégration sensorimotrice. Ce procédé est essentiel pour une interaction normale avec tout ce qui nous entoure. Cependant, plusieurs aspects de ce processus sont encore méconnus. Plus important encore, l’origine de certaines déficiences motrices encore trop peu comprises sont parfois considérées comme purement motrice, alors qu’une origine sensorielle pourrait mener à un même ensemble de symptômes. Afin d’améliorer cette situation, nous proposons ici un nouveau modèle d’intégration sensorimotrice, dénommé « SMILE », basé sur les connaissances de neurobiologie actuelles. Dans ce manuscrit, nous commençons par décrire les caractéristiques fonctionnelles et neuroanatomiques du SMILE. Plusieurs expériences sont ensuite effectuées, via l’imagerie par résonance magnétique fonctionnelle (IRMf), et la stimulation magnétique transcranienne (SMT), afin de tester différents aspects de la composante motrice du SMILE. Si les résultats de ces expériences corroborent les prédictions du SMILE, elles ont aussi mis en évidences d’autres résultats scientifiques intéressants et novateurs, dans des domaines aussi divers que les sous-phases de l’imagination motrice, les processus cérébraux liés aux représentations corporelles, ou encore l’extension du rôle de l’extrastriate body area. Dans les dernières parties de ce manuscrit, nous dévoilons quelques applications cliniques potentielles de notre modèle. Nous utilisons le SMILE afin de proposer deux origines cérébrales plausibles de la dystonie focale de la main. Le dernier chapitre présente comment certaines technologies existantes, telles que les interfaces cerveaux-machines, pourraient bénéficier d’une meilleure compréhension du système sensorimoteur