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What the Whiskers Tell the Brain

Campagner, D; Evans, MH; Loft, MSE; Petersen, RS; (2018) What the Whiskers Tell the Brain. Neuroscience , 368 pp. 95-108. 10.1016/j.neuroscience.2017.08.005. Green open access

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Abstract

A fundamental question in the investigation of any sensory system is what physical signals drive its sensory neurons during natural behavior. Surprisingly, in the whisker system, it is only recently that answers to this question have emerged. Here, we review the key developments, focussing mainly on the first stage of the ascending pathway – the primary whisker afferents (PWAs). We first consider a biomechanical framework, which describes the fundamental mechanical forces acting on the whiskers during active sensation. We then discuss technical progress that has allowed such mechanical variables to be estimated in awake, behaving animals. We discuss past electrophysiological evidence concerning how PWAs function and reinterpret it within the biomechanical framework. Finally, we consider recent studies of PWAs in awake, behaving animals and compare the results to related studies of the cortex. We argue that understanding ‘what the whiskers tell the brain’ sheds valuable light on the computational functions of downstream neural circuits, in particular, the barrel cortex.

Type: Article
Title: What the Whiskers Tell the Brain
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroscience.2017.08.005
Publisher version: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroscience.2017.08.005
Language: English
Additional information: © 2018 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd on behalf of IBRO. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
Keywords: whisker system, somatosensory system, neural coding, trigeminal ganglion, barrel cortex, whisker mechanics
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Life Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Life Sciences > The Sainsbury Wellcome Centre
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10071422
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