McGonigle, David John; (2001) Functional neuroimaging studies of the human somatosensory system. Doctoral thesis (Ph.D.), University College London (United Kingdom).

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Abstract

All organisms must possess the ability to detect environmental stimuli and transform them into a form of information that can be utilised to guide behaviour. As the primate sensory systems consist of multiple interconnected cortical areas, it is important to know where areas processing different aspects of a sensory stimulus are located, and also which dimensions of the stimuli are being processed in each area. The use of functional neuroimaging allows one to address both of these problems. Although much progress has been made regarding the functional and anatomical organisation of higher order visual areas such as IT (e.g. Milner and Goodale, 1996), there has been comparatively little headway in understanding the functional organisation of somatosensory processing in humans. One problem in particular, the delivery robust somatosensory stimulation in the neuroimaging environment, is not a trivial one. In summary, the field of somatosensory neuroimaging has not received as much interest as other sensory modalities. In this thesis, I will present the results of my studies, which can be divided into three sections. I) The design and implementation of stimulation within the scanning environment; II) examinations of the topography of digit representations within primary and tertiary somatosensory areas using fMRI, and; III) examinations of sensorimotor transformations and somatoform illusions. My results are discussed with reference to similar studies in other sensory systems, and are placed in the context of investigations using other non-invasive scanning technologies.

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