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Featured ArticleArticles, Behavioral/Cognitive

Structure, Function, and Cortical Representation of the Rat Submandibular Whisker Trident

Lydia Thé, Michael L. Wallace, Christopher H. Chen, Edith Chorev and Michael Brecht
Journal of Neuroscience 13 March 2013, 33 (11) 4815-4824; DOI: https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.4770-12.2013
Lydia Thé
1Neural Systems and Behavior, Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole, Massachusetts 02543,
2Department of Molecular and Cell Biology, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, California 94720,
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Michael L. Wallace
1Neural Systems and Behavior, Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole, Massachusetts 02543,
3Curriculum in Neurobiology, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27599-7545,
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Christopher H. Chen
1Neural Systems and Behavior, Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole, Massachusetts 02543,
4Dominick P. Purpura Department of Neuroscience, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, New York 10461,
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Edith Chorev
1Neural Systems and Behavior, Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole, Massachusetts 02543,
5Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience, Humboldt University of Berlin, 10115 Berlin, Germany, and
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Michael Brecht
1Neural Systems and Behavior, Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole, Massachusetts 02543,
5Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience, Humboldt University of Berlin, 10115 Berlin, Germany, and
6Cluster of Excellence NeuroCure, Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin, 10117 Berlin, Germany
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Abstract

Although the neurobiology of rodent facial whiskers has been studied intensively, little is known about sensing in other vibrissae. Here we describe the under-investigated submandibular “whisker trident” on the rat's chin. In this three-whisker array, a unique unpaired midline whisker is laterally flanked by two slightly shorter whiskers. All three whiskers point to the ground and are curved backwards. Unlike other whiskers, the trident is not located on an exposed body part. Trident vibrissae are not whisked and do not touch anything over long stretches of time. However, trident whiskers engage in sustained ground contact during head-down running while the animal is exploring or foraging. In biomechanical experiments, trident whiskers follow caudal ground movement more smoothly than facial whiskers. Remarkably, deflection angles decrease with increasing ground velocity. We identified one putative trident barrel in the left somatosensory cortex and two barrels in the right somatosensory cortex. The elongated putative trident-midline barrel is the longest and largest whisker barrel, suggesting that the midline trident whisker is of great functional significance. Cortical postsynaptic air-puff responses in the trident representation show much less temporal precision than facial whisker responses. Trident whiskers do not provide as much high-resolution information about object contacts as facial whiskers. Instead, our observations suggest an idiothetic function: their biomechanics allow trident whiskers to derive continuous measurements about ego motion from ground contacts. The midline position offers unique advantages in sensing heading direction in a laterally symmetric manner. The changes in trident deflection angle with velocity suggest that trident whiskers might function as a tactile speedometer.

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The Journal of Neuroscience: 33 (11)
Journal of Neuroscience
Vol. 33, Issue 11
13 Mar 2013
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Structure, Function, and Cortical Representation of the Rat Submandibular Whisker Trident
Lydia Thé, Michael L. Wallace, Christopher H. Chen, Edith Chorev, Michael Brecht
Journal of Neuroscience 13 March 2013, 33 (11) 4815-4824; DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.4770-12.2013

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Structure, Function, and Cortical Representation of the Rat Submandibular Whisker Trident
Lydia Thé, Michael L. Wallace, Christopher H. Chen, Edith Chorev, Michael Brecht
Journal of Neuroscience 13 March 2013, 33 (11) 4815-4824; DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.4770-12.2013
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