Abstract
Although the processing of whisker deflections in the barrel area of the rodent primary somatosensory cortex (S1) has been studied extensively, how cutaneous vibro-tactile stimuli are processed in the rodent S1 outside the barrel area has not been fully examined. Particularly, the cell-type specific representation of multiple vibration frequencies in genetically identified inhibitory cells in the S1 has not been examined. Using two-photon calcium imaging, we examined the responses to vibration stimuli of excitatory and inhibitory neurons in the S1 hind limb area of male and female mice. The excitatory cells showed relatively sharp selectivity to vibration stimuli, whereas the inhibitory cells exhibited less selectivity. The excitatory and inhibitory cells with different preferred stimuli were intermingled in a “salt and pepper” manner. Furthermore, the noise correlation tended to be especially strong in excitatory-inhibitory and inhibitory-inhibitory cell pairs that have similar stimulus selectivity. These results suggest that excitatory cells tend to represent specific stimulus information and work together with similarly tuned inhibitory cells as a functionally connected network.
Highlights
Vibro-tactile stimuli applied to the skin evoke various sensations
Using two-photon in vivo calcium imaging, we recorded the responses of excitatory and inhibitory cells to vibro-tactile stimuli in the mouse S1 hind limb area
The best stimulus frequency of both the excitatory and inhibitory neurons covered all vibro-tactile frequencies from low (2 Hz) to high (100 Hz) frequencies (Figure 2)
Summary
Vibro-tactile stimuli applied to the skin evoke various sensations. Depending on the vibratory frequency, various cutaneous mechanoreceptors are activated. Merkel cells are tuned to the “texture” of the object (or vibration frequency of 0.4–2.0 Hz), Meissner’s corpuscles are tuned to “flutter” (2–40 Hz), and Pacinian corpuscles are tuned to “vibration” (40–500 Hz) (McGlone and Reilly, 2010; Abraira and Ginty, 2013). The signals from these receptors are projected to the S1 via the thalamus (rats: Angel and Clarke, 1975; cats: Brown et al, 1980; monkeys: Jones, 1983; Rausell and Jones, 1991; Friedman et al, 2004). S1 is crucial for vibro-tactile perception (monkeys: Paul et al, 1972; Sur et al, 1981; Pons et al, 1987; Iwamura et al, 1993; Burton et al, 1995; Zainos et al, 1997; Romo et al, 2000; Yau et al, 2013; mice: O’Connor et al, 2010; Sachidhanandam et al, 2013).
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