Spatial and temporal factors determining afferent fiber responses to a grating moving sinusoidally over the monkey's fingerpad

Gratings of alternating grooves and ridges were moved sinusoidally across the fingerpads of anesthetized monkeys, while responses were recorded from individual slowly adapting afferents (SAs), rapidly adapting afferents (RAs), and Pacinian afferents (PCs) in the median nerve. The stimulus comprised 2 spatial variables, namely, groove width (G) and ridge width (W), and 2 temporal variables, namely, the peak speed of movement (S) and the peak temporal frequency (F) at which successive spatial cycles of the grating pass over a point in the receptive field. The responses of all 3 fiber types were determined by only 1 spatial variable, G, and only 1 temporal variable, F. Changes in W or S affected responses only if there was a concomitant change in either G or F. Responses were phase-locked to the occurrence of successive spatial cycles of the grating, and we have used the number of impulses elicited by a single spatial cycle as the fundamental measure of response. An equation of the form I = cGaexp(-b square root of F) describes the responses of all 3 fiber types. For SAs, the effect of groove width was greater (a = 2.64) than for RAs and PCs (a = 0.924 and 1.05, respectively). The reduction in response with frequency was most marked for SAs (b = 0.262), and greater for PCs (b = 0.167) than for RAs (b = 0.130). From the equation, the instantaneous response during the entire sinusoidal cycle was reconstructed as well as a second measure, the mean cyclic response. These 2 measures behaved differently with changes in the stimulus parameters. The temporal properties of the fibers, as revealed by gratings, may appear to be in conflict with those established by vibratory threshold studies; in fact, they are compatible with suprathreshold responses to vibrating probes.