Discrimination of Vibrotactile Stimuli in the Rat Whisker System: Behavior and Neurometrics

Gerdjikov, Todor V.; Bergner, Caroline G.; Stüttgen, Maik C.; Waiblinger, Christian; Schwarz, Cornelius

doi:10.1016/j.neuron.2010.02.007

Cited by 65 publications

(94 citation statements)

References 34 publications

(63 reference statements)

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Our findings are consistent with a recent study (31) that found interactions between movement frequency and amplitude in whisker sensation. Gerdjikov and colleagues measured the licking response of head-fixed rats to sequences of discrete pulses delivered at various frequencies.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 94%

Behavioral study of whisker-mediated vibration sensation in rats

Adibi

Diamond

Arabzadeh

2012

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Rats use their vibrissal sensory system to collect information about the nearby environment. They can accurately and rapidly identify object location, shape, and surface texture. Which features of whisker motion does the sensory system extract to construct sensations? We addressed this question by training rats to make discriminations between sinusoidal vibrations simultaneously presented to the left and right whiskers. One set of rats learned to reliably identify which of two vibrations had higher frequency (f 1 vs. f 2 ) when amplitudes were equal. Another set of rats learned to reliably identify which of two vibrations had higher amplitude (A 1 vs. A 2 ) when frequencies were equal. Although these results indicate that both elemental features contribute to the rats' sensation, a further test found that the capacity to discriminate A and f was reduced to chance when the difference in one feature was counterbalanced by the difference in the other feature: Rats could not discriminate amplitude or frequency whenever A 1 f 1 = A 2 f 2 . Thus, vibrations were sensed as the product Af rather than as separable elemental features, A and f. The product Af is proportional to a physical entity, the mean speed. Analysis of performance revealed that rats extracted more information about differences in Af than predicted by the sum of the information in elemental differences. These behavioral experiments support the predictions of earlier physiological studies by demonstrating that rats are "blind" to the elemental features present in a sinusoidal whisker vibration; instead, they perceive a composite feature, the speed of whisker motion.barrel cortex | coding R ats use their whiskers to recognize the positions of floors, walls, and objects, particularly in dark surroundings (1-4). Previous studies have characterized the efficacy of whisker-mediated touch in object localization (5, 6), shape recognition (7, 8), gap and aperture width detection (9, 10), texture discrimination (11)(12)(13)(14), and vibration detection/discrimination (15, 16). The accuracy of sensory discriminations, together with the animals' speed in reaching decisions, indicates that the vibrissal sensory system is efficient (17).Several sensorimotor behaviors have been shown to involve the whisker region of the primary somatosensory cortex (17). This region contains anatomically and functionally distinguishable clusters of neurons called "barrels" (18). In rats, each barrel contains an average of 2,500 neurons (19) that respond primarily to their corresponding whisker (20,21). The detailed knowledge of this processing circuitry, combined with the animals' high-level sensory capacities, makes the rat whisker sensory system a good platform for studying the neuronal bases of perception.Because whisker motion is the starting point for most tactile capacities, a critical step is to understand how motion is converted to neuronal firing and how neuronal firing in turn generates sensation. In earlier studies, we analyzed the cortical neuronal activity evoked by sinu...

show abstract

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 94%

Behavioral study of whisker-mediated vibration sensation in rats

Adibi

Diamond

Arabzadeh

2012

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Indeed, the phase of firing within one cycle (or one half of a cycle, in the case of direction-nonselective cells) is determined by mechanical rectification that limits the range of possible neuronal phase preference for a wide range of stimulus frequencies. Another observation is the gradual change in response magnitude and phase that takes place during offset repetitive whisker deflections (Fraser et al, 2006;Gerdjikov et al, 2010). This observation has been extensively analyzed in the current study, playing a major role in the construction of the dynamic rectification model.…”

Section: Mechanoreceptor Characterizationmentioning

confidence: 86%

A Unifying Framework Underlying Mechanotransduction in the Somatosensory System

Lottem

Azouz²

2011

Journal of Neuroscience

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Rodents use their whiskers to sense their surroundings. As most of the information available to the somatosensory system originates in whiskers' primary afferents, it is essential to understand the transformation of whisker motion into neuronal activity. Here, we combined in vivo recordings in anesthetized rats with mathematical modeling to ascertain the mechanical and electrical characteristics of mechanotransduction. We found that only two synergistic processes, which reflect the dynamic interactions between (1) receptor and whisker and (2) receptor and surrounding tissue, are needed to describe mechanotransduction during passive whiskers deflection. Interactions between these processes may account for stimulus-dependent changes in the magnitude and temporal pattern of tactile responses on multiple scales. Thus, we are able to explain complex electromechanical processes underlying sensory transduction using a simple model, which captures the responses of a wide range of mechanoreceptor types to diverse sensory stimuli. This compact and precise model allows for a ubiquitous description of how mechanoreceptors encode tactile stimulus.

show abstract

“…On the other hand, many other studies used head restraining for accurate stimulation of whiskers by piezoelectric motors (Gerdjikov et al, 2010) or air puffs (Martin et al, 2002;Sachdev et al, 2000). For example, Gerdjikov et al (2010) fixed a whisker in a glass capillary which was moved sinusoidally by a piezoelectric bender.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For example, Gerdjikov et al (2010) fixed a whisker in a glass capillary which was moved sinusoidally by a piezoelectric bender. Sachdev et al (2000) applied air puffs similarly in a head-restrained rat.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%