From Laboratory Test Rigs to Clinical Applications in Peripheral Neuropathies Diagnosis

It is useless to highlight the importance of the sense of the touch, because everybody knows that all the physical interactions with the environment generate touch sensations. In fact the first scientific study about it began in the middle of 19th century thanks to Weber who defined the JND (Just Noticeable Displacement). Later Blix, Donaldson and Goldschneider, and after them von Frey all conjectured a straightforward relationship between stimulus, receptor, afferent nerve fiber and subjective sensation, with regard to specificity. Thanks to these researcher pioneers several devices were designed and built for investigate the human report to the tactile stimulus.