Whisker system articles within Nature Communications

Featured

  • Article
    | Open Access

    To localize objects in the environment, animals must distinguish external from self-generated stimulus motion. Here, the authors reveal a transient response in the superior colliculus that emerges when external motion violates self-generated predictions.

    • Suma Chinta
    •  & Scott R. Pluta
  • Article
    | Open Access

    The basal ganglia process sensory and motor related information, but it is not known how movement affects sensory integration. Here, the authors show using in vivo whole-cell recordings that striatal neurons respond to both sensory stimuli and spontaneous whisking and that sensory responses are attenuated by whisking.

    • Roberto de la Torre-Martinez
    • , Maya Ketzef
    •  & Gilad Silberberg
  • Article
    | Open Access

    Activity in the superficial layers of the sensory cortex is believed to be largely driven by incoming sensory stimuli. Here the authors demonstrate how learning changes neural responses to sensations according to both behavioral relevance and timing, suggesting a high degree of non-sensory modulation.

    • Rebecca J. Rabinovich
    • , Daniel D. Kato
    •  & Randy M. Bruno
  • 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

    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

    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