Mapping the integration of sensory information across fingers in human sensorimotor cortex

Abstract

The integration of somatosensory signals across fingers is essential for dexterous object manipulation. Previous experiments suggest that this integration occurs in neural populations in the primary somatosensory cortex (S1). However, the integration process has not been fully characterized, as previous studies have mainly used two-finger stimulation paradigms. Here, we addressed this gap by stimulating all 31 single- and multi-finger combinations. We measured population-wide activity patterns evoked during finger stimulation in human S1 and primary motor cortex (M1) using 7T functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in female and male participants. Using multivariate fMRI analyses, we found clear evidence of unique non-linear interactions between fingers. In Brodmann area (BA) 3b, interactions predominantly occurred between pairs of neighbouring fingers. In BA 2, however, we found equally strong interactions between spatially distant fingers, as well as interactions between finger triplets and quadruplets. We additionally observed strong interactions in the hand area of M1. In both M1 and S1, these non-linear interactions did not reflect a general suppression of overall activity, suggesting instead that the interactions we observed reflect rich, non-linear integration of sensory inputs from the fingers. We suggest that this non-linear finger integration allows for a highly flexible mapping from finger sensory inputs to motor responses that facilitates dexterous object manipulation.