Texture coarseness responsive neurons and their mapping in layer 2–3 of the rat barrel cortex in vivo
Liora Garion,
Uri Dubin,
Yoav Rubin,
Mohamed Khateb,
Yitzhak Schiller,
Rony Azouz,
Jackie Schiller
Affiliations
Liora Garion
Department of Physiology and Biophysics, The Rappaport Faculty of Medicine and Research Institute, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel
Uri Dubin
Department of Physiology and Biophysics, The Rappaport Faculty of Medicine and Research Institute, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel
Yoav Rubin
Department of Physiology and Biophysics, The Rappaport Faculty of Medicine and Research Institute, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel
Mohamed Khateb
Department of Physiology and Biophysics, The Rappaport Faculty of Medicine and Research Institute, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel
Yitzhak Schiller
Department of Physiology and Biophysics, The Rappaport Faculty of Medicine and Research Institute, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel
Rony Azouz
Department of Physiology, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer-Sheva, Israel
Jackie Schiller
Department of Physiology and Biophysics, The Rappaport Faculty of Medicine and Research Institute, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel
Texture discrimination is a fundamental function of somatosensory systems, yet the manner by which texture is coded and spatially represented in the barrel cortex are largely unknown. Using in vivo two-photon calcium imaging in the rat barrel cortex during artificial whisking against different surface coarseness or controlled passive whisker vibrations simulating different coarseness, we show that layer 2–3 neurons within barrel boundaries differentially respond to specific texture coarsenesses, while only a minority of neurons responded monotonically with increased or decreased surface coarseness. Neurons with similar preferred texture coarseness were spatially clustered. Multi-contact single unit recordings showed a vertical columnar organization of texture coarseness preference in layer 2–3. These findings indicate that layer 2–3 neurons perform high hierarchical processing of tactile information, with surface coarseness embodied by distinct neuronal subpopulations that are spatially mapped onto the barrel cortex.
