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J Neurophysiol (January 1, 2003). 10.1152/jn.00272.2002
Submitted on Submitted 12 April 2002; accepted in final form 20 August 2002
Department of Neurobiology, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15261
Minnery, Brandon S. and
Daniel J. Simons.
Response Properties of Whisker-Associated Trigeminothalamic
Neurons in Rat Nucleus Principalis. J. Neurophysiol. 89: 40-56, 2003. Nucleus principalis (PrV) of the brain
stem trigeminal complex mediates the processing and transfer of
low-threshold mechanoreceptor input en route to the ventroposterior
medial nucleus of the thalamus (VPM). In rats, this includes tactile
information relayed from the large facial whiskers via primary afferent
fibers originating in the trigeminal ganglion (NV). Here we describe
the responses of antidromically identified VPM-projecting PrV neurons
(n = 72) to controlled ramp-and-hold deflections of
whiskers. For comparison, we also recorded the responses of 64 NV
neurons under identical experimental and stimulus conditions. Both PrV
and NV neurons responded transiently to stimulus onset
(ON) and offset (OFF), and
the majority of both populations also displayed sustained, or
tonic, responses throughout the plateau phase of the
stimulus (75% of NV cells and 93% of PrV cells). Average
ON and OFF response magnitudes were similar between the two populations. In both NV and
PrV, cells were highly sensitive to the direction of whisker deflection. Directional tuning was slightly but significantly greater
in NV, suggesting that PrV neurons integrate inputs from NV cells
differing in their preferred directions. Receptive fields of PrV
neurons were typically dominated by a "principal" whisker (PW),
whose evoked responses were on average threefold larger than those
elicited by any given adjacent whisker (AW; n = 197). However, of the 65 PrV cells for which data from at least two AWs were
obtained, most (89%) displayed statistically significant ON responses to deflections of one or more AWs.
AW response latencies were 2.7 ± 3.8 (SD) ms longer than those of
their corresponding PWs, with an inner quartile latency difference of
1-4 ms (±25% of median). The range in latency differences
suggests that some adjacent whisker responses arise within PrV itself,
whereas others have a longer, multi-synaptic origin, possibly via the
spinal trigeminal nucleus. Overall, our findings reveal that the
stimulus features encoded by primary afferent neurons are reflected in the responses of VPM-projecting PrV neurons, and that significant convergence of information from multiple whiskers occurs at the first
synaptic station in the whisker-to-barrel pathway.
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