The intricate dance of time and touch: Insights from the somatosensory cortex

Sensory experience and time perception are interwoven in the somatosensory cortex. In this brain region, the neuronal codes for both percepts are carried together, "multiplexed" in a common neuronal network.

Professor Mathew Diamond and his SISSA research team recently published their findings in Nature Communications, shedding light on the intricate interplay between the sense of touch and the sense of time. As we process stimuli received through the skin, neurons in the somatosensory cortex robustly represent the detailed features of the stimuli, culminating in the subjective experience of touch. However, was the stimulus brief or extended in time? How does the perception of elapsed time emerge?

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