Does the parietal lobe affect our sense of touch?

1 Answer
Feb 27, 2016

It joins together the messages of senses (not just touch) from various modalities especially determination of direction and spatial sense.

Explanation:

The parietal lobe is one of the four major lobes of the cerebral cortex in the brain of mammals. The parietal lobe is positioned above the occipital lobe and behind the frontal lobe and central sulcus.

Through this, you can be able to discern that two nearby objects touching the skin are truly two distinct points, not one (Two-point discrimination) and even recognizing the writing on the skin by touch alone. The major sensory inputs from the skin (touch, temperature, and pain receptors), relay through the thalamus to the parietal lobe.

The structure of parietal lobe can be segregated into 3 different parts:
The Central Sulcus: The central sulcus divides the parietal lobe from the frontal lobe
The Parieto-Occipital Sulcus: It divides the parietal and occipital lobes and
The Lateral Sulcus: It separates parietal from the temporal lobe.

The parietal performs vital functions in joining the sensory information from different sections of the body, knowing numerical facts and its relation, and in the handling of items.

Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parietal_lobe http://symptomstreatment.org/parietal-lobe-function/ http://www.webmd.com/brain/picture-of-the-brain

Hope this helps. You can read more from the sources given above for more information. :-)