Short Time-Scale Sensory Coding in S1 during Discrimination of Whisker Vibrotactile Sequences

Rodent whisker input consists of dense microvibration sequences that are often temporally integrated for perceptual discrimination. Whether primary somatosensory cortex (S1) participates in temporal integration is unknown. We trained rats to discriminate whisker impulse sequences that varied in sing...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:PLoS biology 2016-08, Vol.14 (8), p.e1002549-e1002549
Main Authors: McGuire, Leah M, Telian, Gregory, Laboy-Juárez, Keven J, Miyashita, Toshio, Lee, Daniel J, Smith, Katherine A, Feldman, Daniel E
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adaptation
Animals
Behavior
Biological research
Biology and Life Sciences
Biology, Experimental
Brain research
Discrimination
Discrimination (Psychology) - physiology
Evoked Potentials, Somatosensory - physiology
Female
Funding
Kinematics
Medicine and Health Sciences
Neurons - physiology
Physical Sciences
Physical Stimulation
Rats, Long-Evans
Reaction Time - physiology
Research and Analysis Methods
Somatosensory Cortex - cytology
Somatosensory Cortex - physiology
Studies
Touch Perception - physiology
Veterinary physiology
Vibration
Vibrissae - innervation
Vibrissae - physiology
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Description
Summary:Rodent whisker input consists of dense microvibration sequences that are often temporally integrated for perceptual discrimination. Whether primary somatosensory cortex (S1) participates in temporal integration is unknown. We trained rats to discriminate whisker impulse sequences that varied in single-impulse kinematics (5-20-ms time scale) and mean speed (150-ms time scale). Rats appeared to use the integrated feature, mean speed, to guide discrimination in this task, consistent with similar prior studies. Despite this, 52% of S1 units, including 73% of units in L4 and L2/3, encoded sequences at fast time scales (≤20 ms, mostly 5-10 ms), accurately reflecting single impulse kinematics. 17% of units, mostly in L5, showed weaker impulse responses and a slow firing rate increase during sequences. However, these units did not effectively integrate whisker impulses, but instead combined weak impulse responses with a distinct, slow signal correlated to behavioral choice. A neural decoder could identify sequences from fast unit spike trains and behavioral choice from slow units. Thus, S1 encoded fast time scale whisker input without substantial temporal integration across whisker impulses.
ISSN:1545-7885
1544-9173
1545-7885
DOI:10.1371/journal.pbio.1002549