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This Article Full Text Full Text (PDF) All Versions of this Article: 94/3/2004    most recent 00113.2004v1 Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Citation Map Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in Web of Science Similar articles in PubMed Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Citing Articles Citing Articles via HighWire Citing Articles via Web of Science (10) Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Kida, H. Articles by Sato, H. Search for Related Content PubMed PubMed Citation Articles by Kida, H. Articles by Sato, H.

Similarity of Direction Tuning Among Responses to Stimulation of Different Whiskers in Neurons of Rat Barrel Cortex

Laboratory of Cognitive and Behavioral Neuroscience, Graduate School of Medicine, Osaka University, Osaka, Japan

Submitted 9 February 2004; accepted in final form 27 May 2005

Cells in the rat barrel cortex exhibit stimulus-specific response properties. To understand the network mechanism of direction selectivity in response to facial whisker deflection, we examined direction selectivity of neuronal responses to single- and multiwhisker stimulations. In the case of regular-spiking units, i.e., putative excitatory cells, direction preferences were quite similar between responses to single-whisker stimulation of the principal and adjacent whiskers. In multiwhisker stimulation at short (5 ms) interstimulus intervals (ISIs), response facilitation was evoked only when the whiskers were deflected to the preferred direction of the response to the single whisker stimulation. These results suggest that there are neuronal networks among cells with different whisker preferences but with a common direction preference that could be the neuronal basis of the direction-selective facilitation of the response to multiwhisker stimulation. In contrast, multiwhisker stimulation at long (6 ms) ISIs caused non–direction-selective suppression of the response to the second stimulus. In the case of fast-spiking units, i.e., putative inhibitory cells, poor direction selectivity was exhibited. Thus stimulus direction is represented as the direction-selective responses to the single- and multiwhisker stimulations of putative excitatory cells rather than those of putative inhibitory cells.

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