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Neuronal control of the fingertips is socially configured in touchscreen smartphone users

Myriam Balerna,Arko Ghosh

Published 2016 in bioRxiv

ABSTRACT

As a common neuroscientific observation, the more a body part is used, the less variable the corresponding computations become. We here report a more complicated scenario concerning the fingertips of smartphone users. We sorted 21-days histories of touchscreen use of 57 volunteers into social and non-social categories. Sensorimotor variability was measured in a laboratory setting by simple button depressions and scalp electrodes (electroencephalogram, EEG). The ms range trial-to-trial variability in button depression was directly proportional to the number of social touches and inversely proportional to non-social touches. Variability of the early tactile somatosensory potentials was also proportional to the number of social touches, but not to non-social touches. The number of Apps and the speed of touchscreen use also reflected this variability. We suggest that smartphone use affects elementary computations even in tasks not involving a phone and that social activities uniquely reconfigure the thumb to touchscreen use. Impact Statement Unconstrained behavior on a smartphone is a powerful predictor of neuronal functions measured in the laboratory and the details of the smartphone-neuronal association challenges the established ideas of brain plasticity.

PUBLICATION RECORD

  • Publication year

    2016

  • Venue

    bioRxiv

  • Publication date

    2016-08-22

  • Fields of study

    Biology, Computer Science, Psychology

  • Identifiers
    DOI 10.1101/064485
  • External record

    Open on Semantic Scholar

  • Source metadata

    Semantic Scholar

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