Development of an Magnetic Resonance Compatible Multi-Dots Tactile Stimulation System

It is important to build somatotopic mapping of human hands at cortex level. The devices published in previous studies could not provide precise tactile stimuli output covering the whole hand. We introduce a novel tactile stimulation device including the actuating system and the control system. The device could generate multi-channel independent reciprocating stimuli actuated by bimorph based on the inverse piezoelectric effect. The actuating system consists of a position-adjusting part which could cover the whole hand and 23 independent stimulation dots array actuators which could improve the stability of the stimulus and the hand-conformability of equipment layout under high-intensity magnetic field. A prototype tactile stimulation system is designed to verify the output characteristics. The results show that the actuator unit of the device could generate stable 1.6mm displacement from 0–20 Hz under 200V driving voltage, which could be used in future somatotopic mapping of human tactile perception study.