Spiking in primary somatosensory cortex during natural whisking in awake head-restrained rats is cell-type specific

Sensation involves active movement of sensory organs, but it remains unknown how position or movement of sensory organs is encoded in cortex. In the rat whisker system, each whisker is represented by an individual cortical (barrel) column. Here, we quantified in awake, head-fixed rats the impact of...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences - PNAS 2009-09, Vol.106 (38), p.16446-16450
Main Authors: de Kock, Christiaan P.J, Sakmann, Bert
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Action potentials
Action Potentials - physiology
Animals
Behavioral neuroscience
Biological Sciences
Brain
Cells
Computer software
Female
Histology
Impact analysis
Male
Membrane potential
Motor cortex
Neurons
Neurons - cytology
Neurons - physiology
Patch-Clamp Techniques
Population distributions
Pyramidal Cells - cytology
Pyramidal Cells - physiology
Rats
Rats, Wistar
Restraint, Physical
Rodents
Senses
Somatosensory cortex
Somatosensory Cortex - cytology
Somatosensory Cortex - physiology
Stress, Psychological - physiopathology
Vibrissae - innervation
Wakefulness
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Summary:Sensation involves active movement of sensory organs, but it remains unknown how position or movement of sensory organs is encoded in cortex. In the rat whisker system, each whisker is represented by an individual cortical (barrel) column. Here, we quantified in awake, head-fixed rats the impact of natural whisker movements on action potential frequencies of single (identified) neurons located in different layers of somatosensory (barrel) cortex. In all layers, we found only weak correlations between spiking and whisker position or velocity. Conversely, whisking significantly increased spiking rate in a subset of neurons located preferentially in layer 5A. This finding suggests that whisker movement could be encoded by population responses of neurons within all layers and by single slender-tufted pyramids in layer 5A.
ISSN:0027-8424
1091-6490
DOI:10.1073/pnas.0904143106