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Although some brain areas preferentially process information from a particular sensory modality, these areas can also respond to other modalities. Here we used fMRI to show that such responsiveness to tactile stimuli depends on the temporal frequency of stimulation. Participants performed a tactile threshold-tracking task where the tip of either their left or right middle finger was stimulated at 3, 20, or 100 Hz. Whole-brain analysis revealed an effect of stimulus frequency in two regions: the auditory cortex and the visual cortex. The BOLD response in the auditory cortex was stronger during stimulation at hearable frequencies (20 and 100 Hz) whereas the response in the visual cortex was suppressed at infrasonic frequencies (3 Hz). Regardless of which hand was stimulated, the frequency-dependent effects were lateralized to the left auditory cortex and the right visual cortex. Furthermore, the frequency-dependent effects in both areas were abolished when the participants performed a visual task while receiving identical tactile stimulation as in the tactile threshold-tracking task. We interpret these findings in the context of the metamodal theory of brain function, which posits that brain areas contribute to sensory processing by performing specific computations regardless of input modality.

Transection of the median nerve typically causes lifelong restriction of fine sensory and motor skills of the affected hand despite the best available surgical treatment. Inspired by recent findings on activity-dependent structural plasticity of the adult brain, we used voxel-based morphometry to analyze the brains of 16 right-handed adults who more than two years earlier had suffered injury to the left or right median nerve followed by microsurgical repair. Healthy individuals served as matched controls. Irrespective of side of injury, we observed gray matter reductions in left ventral and right dorsal premotor cortex, and white matter reductions in commissural pathways interconnecting those motor areas. Only left-side injured participants showed gray matter reduction in the hand area of the contralesional primary motor cortex. We interpret these effects as structural manifestations of reduced neural processing linked to restrictions in the diversity of the natural manual dexterity repertoire. Furthermore, irrespective of side of injury, we observed gray matter increases bilaterally in a motion-processing visual area. We interpret this finding as a consequence of increased neural processing linked to greater dependence on vision for control of manual dexterity after median nerve injury because of a compromised somatosensory innervation of the affected hand.

Despite state-of-the-art surgical and postoperative treatment, median nerve transection causes lasting impaired hand function due to limitations in the nerve’s reinnervation ability. The defective innervation and thus controllability of the affected hand can shape the brain’s control of manual behaviors. Earlier studies of changes in the processing of tactile stimuli have focused mainly on stimulation of the reinnervated hand and lack sufficient control over the brain’s use of the tactile input in perceptual terms. Here we used fMRI to measure brain activity (BOLD-signal) in 11 people with median nerve injury and healthy controls (N = 11) when performing demanding tactile tasks using the tip of either the index or little finger of either hand. For the nerve-injured group, the left median nerve had been traumatically transected in the distal forearm and surgically repaired on average 8 years before the study. The hand representation of their contralesional (right) primary somatosensory cortex (S1) showed greater activity compared to controls when the left reinnervated index finger was used, but also when the left-hand little finger and the fingers of the right hand innervated by uninjured nerves were used. We argue that the overall increase in activity reflects a general disinhibition of contralesional S1 consistent with an augmented functional reorganizational plasticity being an ongoing feature of chronic recovery from nerve injury. Also, the nerve-injured showed increased activity within three prefrontal cortical areas implicated in higher-level behavioral processing (dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, left ventrolateral prefrontal and right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex), suggesting that processes supporting decision-making and response-selection were computationally more demanding due to the compromised tactile sensibility.