Illusory cold desensitizes touch.

Both real cooling and the thermal referral illusion increase tactile detection thresholds in cooled and non-cooled fingers, with threshold shifts scaling with perceived cold intensity.

• Why it matters: Cold-induced numbness is often explained by direct effects on mechanoreceptors, but perception can also be shaped by expectations, so the study tests whether subjective coldness modulates touch independently.
• What they did: Using thermal referral, cooling the index and ring fingers induced illusory cold referred to the middle finger without local cooling; tactile thresholds were measured and compared with veridical cooling, with skin temperature checked.
• The result: Threshold elevations matched subjective cold ratings and were not accompanied by skin-temperature changes, and a computational model combining afferent spiking and decision modulation reproduced the psychophysical patterns.

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