The representation of the body surface in somatosensory area I of the grey squirrel

Abstract

Microelectrode mapping methods were used to determine the organization of primary somatosensory cortex, SmI, in grey squirrels. A systematic representation of the contralateral body surface was found within somatic konicortex. This primary representation differs from maps of SmI in other mammals in at least two significant ways. The first way in which SmI of squirrels differs from the organization reported for other mammals is that SmI of squirrels contains a double representation of the hand and parts of the forearm. The glabrous skin of the digits is represented twice in a mirror image fashion joined at the finger tips. The hairy skin of the digits, wrist, and parts of the forearm are also represented twice, once on each side of the joined representations of the glabrous skin. A second unique feature of SmI of squirrels is that there is a small region of cortex completely surrounded by SmI that was unresponsive to light cutaneous stimuli under our recording conditions. This unresponsive zone is easily identified in brain sections by architectonic features that deviate from sensory koniocortex and approach motor cortex. A third significant finding was that the back is rostral to the belly in the representation of the trunk in SmI of squirrels. This is the reverse of the orientation reported elsewhere for SmI of mammals, but corresponds to the orientation of the trunk representation in Area 3b of owl monkeys (Kaas et al., '78; Merzenich et al., '78). This similarity supports an earlier contention that the representation of the body in Area 3b of primates is the homolog of SmI in other mammals (Merzenich et al., '78).