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Sensing and processing whisker deflections in rodents

The classical view of sensory information mainly flowing into barrel cortex at layer IV, moving up for complex feature processing and lateral interactions in layers II and III, then down to layers V and VI for output and corticothalamic feedback is becoming increasingly undermined by new evidence. W...

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Autores principales: Burns, Thomas F., Rajan, Ramesh
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: PeerJ Inc. 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7906041/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33665005
http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.10730
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author Burns, Thomas F.
Rajan, Ramesh
author_facet Burns, Thomas F.
Rajan, Ramesh
author_sort Burns, Thomas F.
collection PubMed
description The classical view of sensory information mainly flowing into barrel cortex at layer IV, moving up for complex feature processing and lateral interactions in layers II and III, then down to layers V and VI for output and corticothalamic feedback is becoming increasingly undermined by new evidence. We review the neurophysiology of sensing and processing whisker deflections, emphasizing the general processing and organisational principles present along the entire sensory pathway—from the site of physical deflection at the whiskers to the encoding of deflections in the barrel cortex. Many of these principles support the classical view. However, we also highlight the growing number of exceptions to these general principles, which complexify the system and which investigators should be mindful of when interpreting their results. We identify gaps in the literature for experimentalists and theorists to investigate, not just to better understand whisker sensation but also to better understand sensory and cortical processing.
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spelling pubmed-79060412021-03-03 Sensing and processing whisker deflections in rodents Burns, Thomas F. Rajan, Ramesh PeerJ Neuroscience The classical view of sensory information mainly flowing into barrel cortex at layer IV, moving up for complex feature processing and lateral interactions in layers II and III, then down to layers V and VI for output and corticothalamic feedback is becoming increasingly undermined by new evidence. We review the neurophysiology of sensing and processing whisker deflections, emphasizing the general processing and organisational principles present along the entire sensory pathway—from the site of physical deflection at the whiskers to the encoding of deflections in the barrel cortex. Many of these principles support the classical view. However, we also highlight the growing number of exceptions to these general principles, which complexify the system and which investigators should be mindful of when interpreting their results. We identify gaps in the literature for experimentalists and theorists to investigate, not just to better understand whisker sensation but also to better understand sensory and cortical processing. PeerJ Inc. 2021-02-22 /pmc/articles/PMC7906041/ /pubmed/33665005 http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.10730 Text en ©2021 Burns and Rajan https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
spellingShingle Neuroscience
Burns, Thomas F.
Rajan, Ramesh
Sensing and processing whisker deflections in rodents
title Sensing and processing whisker deflections in rodents
title_full Sensing and processing whisker deflections in rodents
title_fullStr Sensing and processing whisker deflections in rodents
title_full_unstemmed Sensing and processing whisker deflections in rodents
title_short Sensing and processing whisker deflections in rodents
title_sort sensing and processing whisker deflections in rodents
topic Neuroscience
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7906041/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33665005
http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.10730
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