Tactile spatial acuity in childhood: effects of age and fingertip size.

Tactile acuity is known to decline with age in adults, possibly as the result of receptor loss, but less is understood about how tactile acuity changes during childhood. Previous research from our laboratory has shown that fingertip size influences tactile spatial acuity in young adults: those with...

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Autores principales:	Ryan M Peters, Daniel Goldreich
Formato:	article
Lenguaje:	EN
Publicado:	Public Library of Science (PLoS) 2013
Materias:	Medicine R Science Q
Acceso en línea:	https://doaj.org/article/f7c069e7daca4353b7490e884caf33e8
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spelling	oai:doaj.org-article:f7c069e7daca4353b7490e884caf33e82021-11-18T08:41:05ZTactile spatial acuity in childhood: effects of age and fingertip size.1932-620310.1371/journal.pone.0084650https://doaj.org/article/f7c069e7daca4353b7490e884caf33e82013-01-01T00:00:00Zhttps://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/pmid/24454612/?tool=EBIhttps://doaj.org/toc/1932-6203Tactile acuity is known to decline with age in adults, possibly as the result of receptor loss, but less is understood about how tactile acuity changes during childhood. Previous research from our laboratory has shown that fingertip size influences tactile spatial acuity in young adults: those with larger fingers tend to have poorer acuity, possibly because mechanoreceptors are more sparsely distributed in larger fingers. We hypothesized that a similar relationship would hold among children. If so, children's tactile spatial acuity might be expected to worsen as their fingertips grow. However, concomitant CNS maturation might result in more efficient perceptual processing, counteracting the effect of fingertip growth on tactile acuity. To investigate, we conducted a cross-sectional study, testing 116 participants ranging in age from 6 to 16 years on a precision-controlled tactile grating orientation task. We measured each participant's grating orientation threshold on the dominant index finger, along with physical properties of the fingertip: surface area, volume, sweat pore spacing, and temperature. We found that, as in adults, children with larger fingertips (at a given age) had significantly poorer acuity, yet paradoxically acuity did not worsen significantly with age. We propose that finger growth during development results in a gradual decline in innervation density as receptive fields reposition to cover an expanding skin surface. At the same time, central maturation presumably enhances perceptual processing.Ryan M PetersDaniel GoldreichPublic Library of Science (PLoS)articleMedicineRScienceQENPLoS ONE, Vol 8, Iss 12, p e84650 (2013)
institution	DOAJ
collection	DOAJ
language	EN
topic	Medicine R Science Q
spellingShingle	Medicine R Science Q Ryan M Peters Daniel Goldreich Tactile spatial acuity in childhood: effects of age and fingertip size.
description	Tactile acuity is known to decline with age in adults, possibly as the result of receptor loss, but less is understood about how tactile acuity changes during childhood. Previous research from our laboratory has shown that fingertip size influences tactile spatial acuity in young adults: those with larger fingers tend to have poorer acuity, possibly because mechanoreceptors are more sparsely distributed in larger fingers. We hypothesized that a similar relationship would hold among children. If so, children's tactile spatial acuity might be expected to worsen as their fingertips grow. However, concomitant CNS maturation might result in more efficient perceptual processing, counteracting the effect of fingertip growth on tactile acuity. To investigate, we conducted a cross-sectional study, testing 116 participants ranging in age from 6 to 16 years on a precision-controlled tactile grating orientation task. We measured each participant's grating orientation threshold on the dominant index finger, along with physical properties of the fingertip: surface area, volume, sweat pore spacing, and temperature. We found that, as in adults, children with larger fingertips (at a given age) had significantly poorer acuity, yet paradoxically acuity did not worsen significantly with age. We propose that finger growth during development results in a gradual decline in innervation density as receptive fields reposition to cover an expanding skin surface. At the same time, central maturation presumably enhances perceptual processing.
format	article
author	Ryan M Peters Daniel Goldreich
author_facet	Ryan M Peters Daniel Goldreich
author_sort	Ryan M Peters
title	Tactile spatial acuity in childhood: effects of age and fingertip size.
title_short	Tactile spatial acuity in childhood: effects of age and fingertip size.
title_full	Tactile spatial acuity in childhood: effects of age and fingertip size.
title_fullStr	Tactile spatial acuity in childhood: effects of age and fingertip size.
title_full_unstemmed	Tactile spatial acuity in childhood: effects of age and fingertip size.
title_sort	tactile spatial acuity in childhood: effects of age and fingertip size.
publisher	Public Library of Science (PLoS)
publishDate	2013
url	https://doaj.org/article/f7c069e7daca4353b7490e884caf33e8
work_keys_str_mv	AT ryanmpeters tactilespatialacuityinchildhoodeffectsofageandfingertipsize AT danielgoldreich tactilespatialacuityinchildhoodeffectsofageandfingertipsize
_version_	1718421479626899456

Tactile spatial acuity in childhood: effects of age and fingertip size.

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