Barrel cortex function

TL;DR: This work reveals sparse and spatially intermingled representations of multiple tactile features in mice expressing GCaMP6s and nuclear red fluorescent proteins during performance of a single whisker object localization task and an encoding model related activity to behavioral variables.

TL;DR: Early spontaneous activity patterns control the formation of developing networks in sensory cortices, and disturbances of these activity patterns may lead to long-lasting neuronal deficits.

TL;DR: The potential for the use of known critical and sensitive periods during vertebrate development to investigate and advance the understanding of the neural bases underlying impairments in these developmental disorders of the nervous system is highlighted.

TL;DR: Making whole-cell recordings in primary somatosensory barrel cortex of behaving mice shows that S1 neurons projecting to primary motor cortex and those projecting to secondary somatoensory cortex have distinct intrinsic membrane properties and exhibit markedly different membrane potential dynamics during behavior.

TL;DR: It is found that monosynaptic horizontal connections within area V1 are of an appropriate spatial scale to mediate interactions within the SF of V1 neurons and to underlie contrast-dependent changes in SF size, which could represent an anatomical substrate for contextual modulation and global-to-local integration of visual signals.

TL;DR: The capacity of the rodent whisker system to distinguish a smooth surface from a rough one is comparable to that of primates using their fingertips and suggest common strategies for active touch in the mammalian somatomotor system.

TL;DR: A disynaptic inhibitory pathway among neocortical pyramidal cells (PCs) is reported and proposed as a central mechanism for regulation of cortical activity.

TL;DR: A mechanism of cortical activation by which thalamic input alone can drive cortex is suggested by measuring in vivo the excitatory postsynaptic potential evoked by a single synaptic connection and finding that thalamocortical synapses have low efficacy.