Negative BOLD in Somatosensory Cortex During Simple Finger Tapping

Robert Trampel¹, Andreas Schfer¹, Laurentius Huber¹, Robin Martin Heidemann², Gabriele Lohmann¹, Robert Turner¹

The functional properties of the somatosensory system have been intensively studied by functional MRI over the last decades. Somatosensory cortex clearly discriminates touch of self and other objects: one cannot tickle oneself. Using unsmoothed isotropic sub-millimeter fMRI at 7 Tesla, and a paradigm comprising finger tapping and finger movement without fingertip touching, we found an area of robust deactivation in contralateral Brodmann area 3b, consistent with active suppression of somatosensory activity during the anticipation and experience of self-generated touch.