Thermal effects on response of cat touch corpuscle

Rate-intensity functions were obtained in single-unit recordings from Pincus touch corpuscle in cat, at normal skin temperature and during brief warming and cooling. Temperature affected the majority of firing rates by amounts equivalent to the effect of a change of 2 db or more in mechanical stimulus amplitude, the percentage of units so affected increasing with increased area of the thermal contactor. Mechanoreceptors could serve as a source of both thermal and mechanical stimulus information if there were two or more populations of them differing in thermal sensitivity, but there was no evidence that the Pincus touch corpuscles are thus subdivided.