Somatosensory cortical signature of facial nociception and vibrotactile touch-induced analgesia.

The article presents a study which examined the role of primary somatosensory cortex in touch-induced mechanical and heat analgesia. Topics discussed include effect of reafferent signals from self-generated whisking on facial nociception, the activation of somatosensory barrel cortex (S1B) by noxious stimuli, and analysis of the effect of whisking on activity of individual S1B L2/3 neurons in response to noxious stimuli.