Spontaneous epidermal stimulation briefly and diffusely enhances skin spatial acuity in shooting athletes: Evidence from event-related potentials.

BACKGROUND

Tactile sensation is crucial because it provides information about objects during fine-motor actions. Skin stimulation has a wide range of effects, including analgesia, cognitive enhancement, and endocrine modulation. However, very few studies have investigated the effects of spontaneous epidermal stimulation (SES) on tactile sensation, and the underlying mechanisms remain unclear.

METHODS

To explore the neural mechanisms of SES-induced enhancement of skin spatial acuity (SSA), we conducted 2 experiments on 40 healthy young shooters, combining the gate-control theory, heart rate variability, and electroencephalography.

RESULTS

Our results indicate that SES transiently and diffusely enhances SSA, with this effect being particularly pronounced under fatigue conditions and occurring within 5 seconds. This enhancement results from multiple parallel neural mechanisms including pain filtering, sensory nerve activation, attentional modulation, and information processing.

CONCLUSION

These findings provide new insights into how SES can be used to enhance tactile sensitivity in athletes, offering potential applications in training and rehabilitation. This could help develop new training and rehabilitation strategies for athletes and patients with tactile impairment.