Journal
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Volume 105, Issue 29, Pages 10233-10237Publisher
NATL ACAD SCIENCES
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0803800105
Keywords
classical receptive field; neuronal synchrony; primate; two-point stimulation; Utah array
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Funding
- NEI NIH HHS [P30-EY08126, R01 EY014680, EY014680-03, P30 EY008126] Funding Source: Medline
- NICHD NIH HHS [P30-HD015052, P30 HD015052] Funding Source: Medline
- NIGMS NIH HHS [T32 GM007347, T32-GM07347] Funding Source: Medline
- NINDS NIH HHS [NS16446, F31 NS053231, F31-NS053231, R01 NS016446] Funding Source: Medline
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Tactile discrimination depends on integration of information from the discrete receptive fields (RFs) of peripheral sensory afferents. Because this information is processed over a hierarchy of subcortical nuclei and cortical areas, the integration likely occurs at multiple levels. The current study presents results indicating that neurons across most of the extent of the hand representation in monkey primary somatosensory cortex (area 3b) interact, even when these neurons have separate RFs. We obtained simultaneous recordings by using a 100-electrode array implanted in the hand representation of primary somatosensory cortex of two anesthetized owl monkeys. During a series of 0.5-s skin indentations with single or dual probes, the distance between electrodes from which neurons with synchronized spike times were recorded exceeded 2 mm. The results provide evidence that stimuli on different parts of the hand influence the degree of synchronous firing among a large population of neurons. Because spike synchrony potentiates the activation of commonly targeted neurons, synchronous neural activity in primary somatosensory cortex can contribute to discrimination of complex tactile stimuli.
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