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The Journal of Neuroscience, March 26, 2008, 28(13):3438-3455; doi:10.1523/JNEUROSCI.5008-07.2008

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Behavioral/Systems/Cognitive
Biomechanics of the Vibrissa Motor Plant in Rat: Rhythmic Whisking Consists of Triphasic Neuromuscular Activity

Dan N. Hill,^1,2 Roberto Bermejo,⁴ H. Philip Zeigler,⁴ and David Kleinfeld^2,3

¹Division of Biological Sciences, ²Computational Neurobiology Program, and ³Department of Physics, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, California 92093, and ⁴Department of Psychology, Hunter College, City University of New York, New York, New York 10065

Correspondence should be addressed to David Kleinfeld, Department of Physics 0374, University of California, 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, CA 92093. Email: dk{at}physics.ucsd.edu

The biomechanics of a motor plant constrain the behavioral strategies that an animal has available to extract information from its environment. We used the rat vibrissa system as a model for active sensing and determined the pattern of muscle activity that drives rhythmic exploratory whisking. Our approach made use of electromyography to measure the activation of all relevant muscles in both head-fixed and unrestrained rats and two-dimensional imaging to monitor the position of the vibrissae in head-fixed rats. Our essential finding is that the periodic motion of the vibrissae and mystacial pad during whisking results from three phases of muscle activity. First, the vibrissae are thrust forward as the rostral extrinsic muscle, musculus (m.) nasalis, contracts to pull the pad and initiate protraction. Second, late in protraction, the intrinsic muscles pivot the vibrissae farther forward. Third, retraction involves the cessation of m. nasalis and intrinsic muscle activity and the contraction of the caudal extrinsic muscles m. nasolabialis and m. maxillolabialis to pull the pad and the vibrissae backward. We developed a biomechanical model of the whisking motor plant that incorporates the measured muscular mechanics along with movement vectors observed from direct muscle stimulation in anesthetized rats. The results of simulations of the model quantify how the combination of extrinsic and intrinsic muscle activity leads to an enhanced range of vibrissa motion than would be available from the intrinsic muscles alone.

Key words: biomechanics; central pattern generator; EMG (electromyogram); motor control; movement (motion; motor activity); rat; vibrissa (whisker)

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Received May 22, 2007; revised Jan. 23, 2008; accepted Jan. 28, 2008.

Correspondence should be addressed to David Kleinfeld, Department of Physics 0374, University of California, 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, CA 92093. Email: dk{at}physics.ucsd.edu

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