Muscular tone at rest: relationship with cutaneous pleasurable experience, an interpretation according to the dimensional approach to cerebral dominance.

ABSTRACT

This study examined some aspects of the relationship between muscular tone at rest and a particular kind of pleasurable tactile stimulation (tickle) in the light of the dimensional approach to cerebral dominance. Electromyographic scores, latencies, and tickle durations for six muscles and corresponding skin areas were taken both on the right and left sides of the body from 40 female students in psychology. There was an inverse relationship between muscular tone at rest and sensitivity to tickle stimulation, which is lower (long latency and brief duration of perception) when the levels of muscular tone increase. So we hypothesize that the muscular system (especially because the correlations of tone and latency are positive) plays a role through the afferents of inhibition of tactile pleasurable experience. This role is more evident for the left side of the body. The dimensional approach to cerebral dominance on the basis of myographic score identified three groups of subjects (right, left, and non-dominant). The subjects classified as right-dominant on the basis of myographic score show a longer duration of tickle on the right half of the body than on the left and longer latency on the left. The left-dominant subjects do not show any difference between the two halves of the body in duration of tickle but show longer latency on the left side. The non-dominant subjects show also no difference between the two sides of the body for both tickle duration and latency.