The clothing effect: tactile neurons in the precentral gyrus do not respond to the touch of the familiar primate chair.

Abstract

Neurons in a restricted zone in the precentral gyrus of macaque monkeys respond to tactile, visual, and auditory stimuli. The tactile receptive fields of these multimodal cells are usually located on the face, arm, or upper torso. In the present study, in awake monkeys sitting in a primate chair, the neurons responded to a tactile probe touching the skin within the tactile receptive field. However, the same neurons did not respond when the tactile receptive field was touched by the primate chair, to which the monkey was habituated.