Somatosensory system articles within Nature Communications

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  • Article
    | Open Access

    Sensory neuronal circuits adapt during maturation when animals start to actively interact with the external world. The authors reveal structural and functional rearrangements of the input cortical interneurons receive around the time the animals start active sensation.

    • Rahel Kastli
    • , Rasmus Vighagen
    •  & Theofanis Karayannis

  • Article
    | Open Access

    During NREM sleep, spindles emerge from thalamocortical interactions. Here the authors carry out multisite thalamic and cortical recordings in freely behaving mice, to investigate the role of other non-classical thalamic sites in sleep spindle generation.

    • Mojtaba Bandarabadi
    • , Carolina Gutierrez Herrera
    •  & Antoine R. Adamantidis

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Inhibition in spinal nociceptive pathways is weaker and more labile in lamina I —where thermal input is primarily processed— than in lamina II that encodes predominantly high threshold mechanical input. This explains why noxious thermal input makes spinal circuits prone to catastrophic sensitization.

    • Francesco Ferrini
    • , Jimena Perez-Sanchez
    •  & Yves De Koninck

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Astrocytes respond to neurotransmitters with calcium transients stimulating the release of gliotransmitters that regulate synaptic and neuronal functions. Here, the authors show that cortical astrocytes also respond to sensory inputs and regulate sensory-evoked neuronal network activity.

    • Justin Lines
    • , Eduardo D. Martin
    •  & Alfonso Araque

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The thalamus provides sensory input to the cortex, but many aspects of thalamocortical signaling remain unknown. Here, the authors reveal parallel non-overlapping thalamic pathways with distinct representations of tactile and decision-related information during a goal-directed sensorimotor task.

    • Sami El-Boustani
    • , B. Semihcan Sermet
    •  & Carl C. H. Petersen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Do cortical neurons stably represent stimulus features in different contexts? Here, using calcium imaging, the authors show that texture selectivity of individual neurons is dynamic during reversal learning. For a subclass this is contingent on the associated reward and forecasts the onset of learning.

    • Ronan Chéreau
    • , Tanika Bawa
    •  & Anthony Holtmaat

  • Review Article
    | Open Access

    Itch is an important somatosensation, but the central mechanisms underlying it are not fully understood. Here, Chen and Sun review recent studies on the spinal and supraspinal circuits involved in itch processing.

    • Xiao-Jun Chen
    •  & Yan-Gang Sun

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Learning is a dynamic process involving many cortical areas. Here, using cortex-wide imaging, the authors show that in mice learning to discriminate between two textures a distinct task related signal flow is enhanced involving a specific association area whereas other association areas are suppressed.

    • Ariel Gilad
    •  & Fritjof Helmchen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    While there is no direct pathway from the superior colliculus to the cortex, the authors find that the superior colliculus modulates sensory-evoked responses in the somatosensory cortex. This modulation by the superior colliculus is mediated via a powerful di-synaptic pathway through the thalamus.

    • Saba Gharaei
    • , Suraj Honnuraiah
    •  & Greg J. Stuart

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Understanding mechanisms of cerebral oxygen regulation is critical for healthy brain function. Here the authors show that respiration is a key modulator of cerebral oxygenation, which will be helpful in better resolving neurally-generated functional brain imaging signals, such as BOLD fMRI.

    • Qingguang Zhang
    • , Morgane Roche
    •  & Patrick J. Drew

  • Article
    | Open Access

    In congenitally blind people, tactile stimuli can activate the occipital (visual) cortex. Here, the authors show using magnetoencephalography (MEG) that occipital activation can occur within 35 ms following tactile stimulation, suggesting the existence of a fast thalamocortical pathway for touch in congenitally blind humans.

    • Franziska Müller
    • , Guiomar Niso
    •  & Ron Kupers

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Fragile X syndrome and autism spectrum disorders are associated with circuit hyperexcitability, however, its cellular and synaptic bases are not well understood. Here, the authors report abnormal synaptogenesis with an increased prevalence of polysynaptic spines with normal morphology in a mouse model of fragile X.

    • Sam A. Booker
    • , Aleksander P. F. Domanski
    •  & Peter C. Kind

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Somatosensory hypersensitivity in Fmr-1 knockout mice is thought to arise from an increase in cortical circuit excitability. Here, the authors report that the loss of precision of sensory encoding in the Layer 4 of barrel cortex is the primary developmental circuit alteration that drives the other compensatory circuit dysfunction.

    • Aleksander P. F. Domanski
    • , Sam A. Booker
    •  & Peter C. Kind

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Whether cortical neurons can fire reliable spikes amid cellular noise and chaotic network dynamics remains debated. Here the authors simulate a detailed neocortical microcircuit model and show that noisy and chaotic cortical network dynamics are compatible with stimulus-evoked, millisecond spike-time reliability.

    • Max Nolte
    • , Michael W. Reimann
    •  & Eilif B. Muller

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Layer 4 spiny stellate cells project locally while pyramidal neurons have long-range projections yet the molecular program that determines their specificity is not yet known. Here, the authors demonstrate that Egr, Foxg1 and COUP-TFI transcription factors play causal role in the specification of these cell types.

    • Pei-Shan Hou
    • , Goichi Miyoshi
    •  & Carina Hanashima

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Alpha power is known to play an important role in cognition and perception, but we do not understand the link between alpha power and perceptual learning efficacy. Here, the authors use neurofeedback training to show that increased alpha power enhances learning while reduced alpha impedes learning.

    • Marion Brickwedde
    • , Marie C. Krüger
    •  & Hubert R. Dinse

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Sensory tuning properties of neurons in the secondary whisker somatosensory cortex (wS2) are not well understood. Here, the authors report that wS2 neurons supralinearly integrate concurrent multi-whisker input with larger temporal windows than primary somatosensory cortex.

    • Matías A. Goldin
    • , Evan R. Harrell
    •  & Daniel E. Shulz

  • Article
    | Open Access

    During active touch, sensory responses to object touch are gated at the level of thalamus and cortex. Here, the authors report gating at the level of the brainstem and show that an intact somatosensory cortex is essential for this response modulation.

    • Shubhodeep Chakrabarti
    •  & Cornelius Schwarz

  • Article
    | Open Access

    How corticostriatal connections of different pyramidal cell types are organized, particularly in convergent circuits, has not been evaluated in detail. Here, cell type-specific Cre-driver mice reveal that pyramidal tract-type corticostriatal projections, though broadly similar to intratelencephalic-type projections from the same cortical region, are generally more restricted and variable in their topographic termination patterns.

    • Bryan M. Hooks
    • , Andrew E. Papale
    •  & Charles R. Gerfen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Chronic itch affects about 10% of the general population, however current treatments are largely ineffective. Here, the authors show that targeting of inhibitory α2 and α3GABAA receptors reduces itch in mice and in a canine model, suggesting this a potentially useful therapeutic approach.

    • William T. Ralvenius
    • , Elena Neumann
    •  & Hanns Ulrich Zeilhofer

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Layer 4 stellate neurons in barrel cortex have a characteristic dendritic pattern. Here, the authors conduct long-term imaging from postnatal day 3–6 to show that an orientation bias is established through dendritic tree turnover and selective elaboration, which may be induced by biased thalamocortical inputs.

    • Shingo Nakazawa
    • , Hidenobu Mizuno
    •  & Takuji Iwasato

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Absence epilepsy is associated with frequent generalized spike-wave seizures and loss of awareness. Here the authors use 2-photon calcium imaging of primary visual cortex in a genetic mouse model of absence epilepsy and find that cortical neurons are less active and more loosely coupled to the seizure EEG signature than previously believed.

    • Jochen Meyer
    • , Atul Maheshwari
    •  & Stelios Smirnakis

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Forward models predict and attenuate the sensory feedback of voluntary movement yet their involvement in motor imagery has only been theorized. Here the authors show that motor imagery recruits forward models to elicit sensory attenuation to the same extent as real movements.

    • Konstantina Kilteni
    • , Benjamin Jan Andersson
    •  & H. Henrik Ehrsson

  • Article
    | Open Access

    In superficial layers of the cortex, excitatory neurons often fire single action potentials. Here, using multiple whole-cell recordings in vivo, the authors show that single excitatory synaptic events can drive GABA-ergic parvalbumin neurons to fire, triggering inhibition of other pyramidal neurons.

    • Jean-Sébastien Jouhanneau
    • , Jens Kremkow
    •  & James F. A. Poulet

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Thalamocortical dysrhythmia has been proposed to occur in a number of neurological and psychiatric disorders. Here, the authors use a data-driven approach to demonstrate thalamocortical dysrhythmia occurs in individuals with Parkinson’s disease, neuropathic pain, tinnitus, and depression.

    • Sven Vanneste
    • , Jae-Jin Song
    •  & Dirk De Ridder

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Functional consequence of transient delay in neuronal migration is unclear. This study shows that Wnt/C-Kit signaling regulates radial migration in rat somatosensory cortex, and that transient delay of L2/3 neuronal migration leads to interhemispheric connectivity alteration and abnormal social behavior.

    • Riccardo Bocchi
    • , Kristof Egervari
    •  & Jozsef Z. Kiss

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The major output cell type of the neocortex – pyramidal tract neurons (PTs) – send axonal projections to various subcortical areas. Here the authors combined in vivo recordings, retrograde tracings, and reconstructions of PTs in rat somatosensory cortex to show that PT structure and activity can predict specific subcortical targets.

    • Gerardo Rojas-Piloni
    • , Jason M. Guest
    •  & Marcel Oberlaender

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The responses of striatal GABAergic interneurons to thalamic inputs are not well characterised. Here, the authors demonstrate that complex intrastriatal circuitry is responsible for thalamic-evoked monosynaptic and disynaptic excitation in NPY-NGF interneurons but a disynaptic inhibition in the NPY-PLTS.

    • Maxime Assous
    • , Jaime Kaminer
    •  & James M. Tepper

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Barrel cortex contains a functional map of whiskers but how neuronal activity maps multi-whisker inputs has not been studied. Here the authors show that while uncorrelated multi-whisker stimuli activate barrel neurons, correlated multi-whisker inputs activate neurons in a ring at the barrel-septa boundary

    • Luc Estebanez
    • , Julien Bertherat
    •  & Jean- François Léger

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Spontaneous movements are important for mammalian development but how network activity underlies the generation of these actions remains unclear. Here the authors show that both spontaneous twitches and complex movements enable correlated activity in motor and sensory networks of the rat spinal cord in vivo, and that sensory feedback is instrumental in this synchronization.

    • Ana R. Inácio
    • , Azat Nasretdinov
    •  & Roustem Khazipov

  • Article
    | Open Access

    How different sensory modalities interact to control feeding is poorly understood. Here, authors show that in Drosophila, activation of labellar mechanosensory neurons causes inhibition of sweet-sensing gustatory receptor neurons, as a result, Drosophilaprefer soft food at the expense of sweetness.

    • Yong Taek Jeong
    • , Soo Min Oh
    •  & Seok Jun Moon

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Sensory cortices receive input from cortical cells and the thalamus, yet it is unknown how these inputs interact to generate synchronous activity. Here authors show that unlike cortical inputs, thalamic inputs are asynchronous, suggesting that cortical synchronization is due to intracortical coupling.

    • Katayun Cohen-Kashi Malina
    • , Boaz Mohar
    •  & Ilan Lampl

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Perceiving the size of objects is subjective. Here the authors show that these subjective differences in size perception can be explained by the individual variance in spatial tuning of neuronal populations in the primary visual cortex.

    • Christina Moutsiana
    • , Benjamin de Haas
    •  & D. Samuel Schwarzkopf

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Functional imaging in awake head-fixed mice is a widely used technique to study neural responses. Here the authors report on an open source, fully automated unsupervised system for training mice to self initiate head fixation to enable stable mesoscopic functional imaging of cortical functional connectivity.

    • Timothy H. Murphy
    • , Jamie D. Boyd
    •  & Jeff M. LeDue

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The human brain integrates inputs across multiple sensory streams into a unified percept. Here Parise and Ernst present a model that assesses the correlation, lag and synchrony of multisensory stimuli, and predicts psychophysical performance on multisensory temporal and spatial tasks.

    • Cesare V. Parise
    •  & Marc O. Ernst

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Long-term use of opioids can lead to a paradoxical increase in pain sensitivity. Here, Hayashi et al. link activation of potassium channels on microglia with morphine-induced hyperalgesia and anti-nociceptive tolerance in mice.

    • Yoshinori Hayashi
    • , Saori Morinaga
    •  & Hiroshi Nakanishi

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Epileptic brains display inhibitory restraint as manifested by the spread of synchronized activities being delayed in timing. Here, Elliot Smith and colleagues show fast-moving traveling wave that originates from the edge of ictal wavefront with subsequent depolarization and multiunit firing in the seizing brain regions in epileptic patients.

    • Elliot H. Smith
    • , Jyun-you Liou
    •  & Catherine A. Schevon

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Anterior insula (AI) and medial anterior cingulate cortex (mACC) are activated by self and vicarious pain, disgust and fairness, yet the overlap of these representations are not known. Here the authors provide evidence for shared neural codes in the left AI and mACC and distinct codes in the right AI.

    • Corrado Corradi-Dell’Acqua
    • , Anita Tusche
    •  & Tania Singer

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The temperature-sensitive TRPM8 channel is essential for cold sensing and has been linked to pathological cold hypersensitivity. Here, the authors find TRPM8 insertion in the cell membrane is mediated by VAMP7 following atypical LAMP1-containing vesicle transport, and that loss of VAMP7 leads to reduced cold avoidance in vivo.

    • Debapriya Ghosh
    • , Silvia Pinto
    •  & Thomas Voets

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