• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.286-294
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• 2010

This study was performed to identify the cerebral network associated with sensation through the tickling stimulation, which is distinctive from the rest of other networks processing normal stimulation and to investigate the difference of laughing mechanism which is closely related to tickling using functional MRI(fMRI). A 16 healthy volunteers (mean age: 28.9) on a 3.0T MR scanner during two sensation conditions. Counterbalanced stimulus were presented across the participants, and the stimulation was used block design. Acquired data was analyzed by the statistical parametric mapping (SPM 99). Subject and group analysis was performed. Individual analysis showed the activation of somatic sensation area in both tasks and the tickling sensation test showed more activated area in the Wernicke's area(BA40) compared to the normal sensation. The group analysis result shows that under normal stimulations, both sides of somatosensory cortices(BA 1,2 and 3) were activated and under tickling stimulation, not only the cortices but also those huge activation on thalamus, cingulate gyrus and insular lobe were detected. When the tickling was stopped, significant activations were shown in right cingulate gyrus, left MFG area and left insular lobe. A cerebral area responsible for recognizing tickling sensation was examined and the primitive stimulation such as tickling is much closely related to laugh, which is an important factor for various social activities.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.29 no.7
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• pp.711-716
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• 2012

The purpose of this study was to investigate how the modulation method affects the effectiveness of eliciting tactile sensations by electrical stimulation. Two methods were employed and the results were compared and analyzed; pulse amplitude modulation (PAM) and pulse width modulation (PWM). Thirty-five healthy subjects participated in the experiments to measure the stimulation intensity that began to elicit a tactile sensation - activation threshold (AT). Constant-current monophasic rectangular pulse trains were employed, and the stimulation intensity was varied from zero until the subject felt any uncomfortable sensation. The step size of the stimulation intensity was 100nC/pulse. After each experiment, the subject described the sensation both quantitatively and qualitatively. The two modulation methods did not make a significant difference as far as the AT values were concerned, but most of the subjects showed 'intra-individual' consistency. Also, it was confirmed that our range of the stimulation parameters enabled us to obtain three major tactile sensations; tickling, pressure and vibration. The results suggested that the stimulation parameters and the modulation type should be selected for each individual and that selective electrical stimulation of the mechanoreceptors needs more diversified researches on the electrode design, multi-channel stimulation protocol, waveforms of the pulse train, etc.