Repetitive somatosensory stimulation shrinks the body image

Current models of mental body representations (MBRs) indicate that tactile inputs feed some of them for different functions, implying that altering tactile inputs may affect MBRs differently. Here we tested this hypothesis by leveraging Repetitive Somatosensory Stimulation (RSS), known to improve tactile perception by modulating primary somatosensory cortex (SI) activity, and measured its effects over the body image, the body model and the superficial schema in a randomized sham-controlled, double-blind cross-over study. Results show that RSS affected the body image, participants perceiving their finger size as being smaller after RSS. While previous work showed increase of finger size perception after tactile anesthesia, these findings reveal that tactile inputs can diametrically modulate the body image. In contrast, RSS did not seem to alter the body model or superficial schema. In addition, we report a novel mislocalization pattern, with a bias towards the middle finger in the distal..., , , # Data from: Repetitive somatosensory stimulation shrinks the body image

[https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.t4b8gtj9d](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.t4b8gtj9d)

In this randomized sham-controlled, double-blind cross-over study, we assessed the effects of Repetitive Somatosensory Stimulation (RSS; known to improve tactile perception through a modulation of primary somatosensory cortex activity) on three mental body representations (MBRs): the body image, the body model and the superficial schema.

With a within-subject design (each subject received RSS and Sham on separate days), three tasks were used to assess these MBRs before and after the RSS or Sham stimulation: the template matching task (TMT; body image), the tactile distance judgement task (TDJT; body model & superficial schema) and the tactile localization task (TLT; superficial schema). Tactile perception was also assessed to check for RSS efficacy through the two-point discrimination task (2PDT).

## Description of the data and f..., We received explicit consent from the participants to publish de-identified data in the public domain. In the datasets, numbers were attributed to the participants. They are thus referred to as \"Subject number ...\".