Journal
NATURE NEUROSCIENCE
Volume 19, Issue 10, Pages 1367-+Publisher
NATURE PUBLISHING GROUP
DOI: 10.1038/nn.4363
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Funding
- Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience Berlin
- German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) [Forderkennzeichen 01GQ1001A]
- NeuroCure
- Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz prize of the DFG
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The whisker trident, a three-whisker array on the rat's chin, has been implicated in egomotion sensing and might function as a tactile speedometer. Here we study the cortical representation of trident whiskers and E-row whiskers in barrel cortex. Neurons identified in trident cortex of anesthetized animals showed sustained velocity-sensitive responses to ground motion. In freely moving animals, about two-thirds of the units in the trident and E-row whisker cortices were tuned to locomotion speed, a larger fraction of speed-tuned cells than in the somatosensory dysgranular zone. Similarly, more units were tuned to acceleration and showed sensitivity to turning in trident and E-row whisker cortices than in the dysgranular zone. Microstimulation in locomoting animals evoked small but significant speed changes, and such changes were larger in the trident and E-row whisker representations than in the dysgranular zone. Thus, activity in trident and E-row cortices represents egomotion information and influences locomotion behavior.
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