GLOSSARY

Touch is the somatic sense of perceiving contact, pressure, vibration, skin stretch, and surface texture through the skin’s mechanoreceptors; with an area of about 1.5–2 square metres, the skin is the body’s largest sense organ.

Types of Touch

• Fine (discriminative) touch: precise localisation, texture, and shape, via the dorsal columns.
• Crude (non-discriminative) touch: general contact with imprecise localisation, via the anterior spinothalamic tract.
• Affective touch: slow stroking of hairy skin, via C-tactile fibres, linked to calm and social bonding.

Receptors

Meissner (fine touch), Merkel (pressure and texture), Pacinian (vibration), Ruffini (stretch), and hair follicle receptors.

Tactile Acuity