摘要：SummaryDirectional tactile pulling sensations are integral to everyday life, but their neural mechanisms remain unknown. Prior accounts hold that primary somatosensory (SI) activity is sufficient to generate pulling sensations, with alternative proposals suggesting that amodal frontal or parietal regions may be critical. We combined high-density EEG with asymmetric vibration, which creates an illusory pulling sensation, thereby unconfounding pulling sensations from unrelated sensorimotor processes. Oddballs that created opposite direction pulls to common stimuli were compared to the same oddballs after neutral common stimuli (symmetric vibration) and to neutral oddballs. We found evidence against the sensory-frontal N140 and in favor of the midline P200 tracking the emergence of pulling sensations, specifically contralateral parietal lobe activity 264-320ms, centered on the intraparietal sulcus. This suggests that SI is not sufficient to generate pulling sensations, which instead depend on the parietal association cortex, and may reflect the extraction of orientation information and related spatial processing.Graphical abstractDisplay OmittedHighlights•Tactile pulling sensations are difficult to isolate in the human brain•Illusory pulls from asymmetric vibration allow neural activity to be isolated•Pulling sensations are driven by parietal lobe activity 264-320ms post-stimulus•Spatial processing in the parietal lobe may be essential for pulling sensationsBehavioral neuroscience; Sensory neuroscience
