An important goal of neuroscience is to understand sensorimotor integration-how the brain processes sensory input and uses it to control movement. """"""""Active touch"""""""" behavior is an experimentally accessible example of sensorimotor integration and """"""""haptic"""""""" scanning patterns are among the most complex movements generated by the somato-sensorimotor system. However, we have relatively little information about the functional organization of neural systems mediating active touch in any species. The rodent whisking system is a useful model for the study of active touch because its anatomy and physiology are well characterized. The adaptive control of whisking requires a steady stream of input related to the properties of whisker movements, their onset, trajectory and termination. Electrophysiological data suggests that the ensemble of primary afferent fibers innervating a single vibrissa may encode many of these parameters. However, most of our knowledge of sensory coding in this system comes from studies of neural responses to passive vibrissa displacements in anesthetized animals. Understanding sensory processing in this ubiquitous model system would be advanced by characterizing the discharge properties of first order neurons in awake, behaving animals. We have developed a preparation which facilitates such studies and propose to use it to characterize the mechanisms by which sensory inputs associated with active touch are encoded in first order trigeminal ganglion neurons of rodents.
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