Neuronal encoding of texture in the whisker sensory pathway.

ABSTRACT: A major challenge of sensory systems neuroscience is to quantify brain activity underlying perceptual experiences and to explain this activity as the outcome of elemental neuronal response properties. Rats make extremely fine discriminations of texture by "whisking" their vibrissae across an object's surface, yet the neuronal coding underlying texture sensations remains unknown. Measuring whisker vibrations during active whisking across surfaces, we found that each texture results in a unique "kinetic signature" defined by the temporal profile of whisker velocity. We presented these texture-induced vibrations as stimuli while recording responses of first-order sensory neurons and neurons in the whisker area of cerebral cortex. Each texture is encoded by a distinctive, temporally precise fi

SUBMITTER: Arabzadeh E 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC544542 | biostudies-literature | 2005 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature