Background: The perception of tactile-stimulation locations is an important function of the human somatosensory system during body movements and its interactions with the surroundings. Previous psychophysical and neurophysiological studies have focused on spatial location perception of the upper body. In this study, we recorded single-trial electroencephalography (EEG) responses evoked by four vibrotactile stimulators placed on the buttocks and thighs while the human subject was sitting in a chair with a cushion.
Methods: Briefly, 14 human subjects were instructed to sit in a chair for a duration of 1 h or 1 h and 45 min. Two types of cushions were tested with each subject: a foam cushion and an air-cell-based cushion dedicated for wheelchair users to alleviate tissue stress. Vibrotactile stimulations were applied to the sitting interface at the beginning and end of the sitting period. Somatosensory-evoked potentials were obtained using a 32-channel EEG. An artificial neural net was used to predict the tactile locations based on the evoked EEG power.
Results: We found that single-trial beta (13-30 Hz) and gamma (30-50 Hz) waves can best predict the tactor locations with an accuracy of up to 65%. Female subjects showed the highest performances, while males' sensitivity tended to degrade after the sitting period. A three-way ANOVA analysis indicated that the air-cell cushion maintained location sensitivity better than the foam cushion.
Conclusion: Our finding shows that tactile location information is encoded in EEG responses and provides insights on the fundamental mechanisms of the tactile system, as well as applications in brain-computer interfaces that rely on tactile stimulation.
Keywords: EEG; cushion; location perception; machine learning; somatosensory; tactile.