Evidence map›Paper›PMID 33036967›Full record

ArticleScience advances2020

A universal scaling law of mammalian touch.

J W Andrews, M J Adams, T D Montenegro-Johnson

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Science advances, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
3citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

3 citing papers in PubMed.

  1. Article
  2. Article
  3. Review
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

3 authors.

J W AndrewsSchool of Mathematics, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham B15 2TT, UK.ORCID 0000-0002-4003-7487
M J AdamsSchool of Engineering, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham B15 2TT, UK.ORCID 0000-0001-9648-7308
T D Montenegro-JohnsonSchool of Mathematics, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham B15 2TT, UK. t.d.johnson@bham.ac.uk.ORCID 0000-0002-9370-7720

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

For most mammals, touch is the first sense to develop. They must feel vibrations on the surface of their skin to enable them to respond to various stimuli in their environment, a process called vibrotaction. But how do mammals perceive these vibrations? Through mathematical modeling of the skin and touch receptors, we show that vibrotaction is dominated by "surface" Rayleigh waves traveling cooperatively through all layers of the skin and bone. Applying our model to experimental data, we identify a universal scaling law for the depth of touch receptors across multiple species, indicating an evolutionarily conserved constant in the sensation of vibrations.

Identifiers

PMID33036967
PMCPMC7546702

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Registered trials

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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.