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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2026 May 1.
Published in final edited form as: Brain Stimul. 2025 Apr 10;18(3):900–908. doi: 10.1016/j.brs.2025.03.021

Fig. 2: Subthreshold cortical stimulation enhances tactile sensitivity.

Fig. 2:

(A) Skin vibration was applied to six different parts of the hand during simultaneous delivery of either a subthreshold or a suprathreshold non-target ICMS signal that created an overlapping projected field in the same hand region. During suprathreshold conditions, the participant perceived tactile sensations on the target hand sites from both the vibration and ICMS. (B) Subthreshold ICMS led to a significant reduction (median: −1.5 dB, p = 0.002) in vibration detection threshold, and this increased sensitivity was consistent across all hand regions. Providing suprathreshold ICMS did not significantly alter vibrotactile thresholds with respect to the baseline value (p = 0.27). Subthreshold non-target vibration did not alter ICMS detection thresholds (median: 0.2 dB, p = 0.36); however, ICMS thresholds did significantly increase during simultaneous delivery of suprathreshold vibration signals (median: 2.4 dB, p = 0.001). The violin plot whiskers represent the minimal and maximal values; the vertical lines indicate the first and third quartiles; the horizontal lines are means; the white dots are the medians.