Precise Spike Patterns in Cortical Neurons Encode for Touch Stimuli
Material below summarizes the article Refractoriness Accounts for Variable Spike Burst Responses in Somatosensory Cortex, published on August 14, 2017, in eNeuroand authored by Bartosz Teleńczuk, Richard Kempter, Gabriel Curio, and Alain Destexhe.
In the cortical area responsible for the processing of touch, the primary somatosensory cortex (S1) neurons can respond to touch stimuli with a very high precision. This is measured by repeating the same stimulus many times and recording neurons in S1 using a micro-electrode.
This was shown in macaque monkeys. Electrically stimulating the median nerve (which relays the touch information from the hand) at the wrist leads to the firing of high-frequency bursts of action potentials in the primary somatosensory cortex. Remarkably, this pattern of firing is repeatable with sub-millisecond precision.
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