Skin sensory information from the dorsum of the foot and ankle is necessary for kinesthesia at the ankle joint.

Previous research has shown that skin is capable of providing kinesthetic cues at particular joints but we are unsure how these cues are used by the central nervous system. The current study attempted to identify the role of skin on the dorsum of the ankle during a joint matching task. A 30cm patch of skin was anesthetized and matching accuracy in a passive joint matching task was compared before and after skin anesthetization.