Clemens, AM and Fernandez Delgado, Y and Mehlman, ML and Mishra, P and Brecht, M (2018) Multisensory and Motor Representations in Rat Oral Somatosensory Cortex. In: Scientific Reports, 8 (1).
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Abstract
In mammals, a complex array of oral sensors assess the taste, temperature, and haptic properties of food. Although the representation of taste has been extensively studied in the gustatory cortex, it is unclear how the somatosensory cortex encodes information about the properties of oral stimuli. Moreover, it is poorly understood how different oral sensory modalities are integrated and how sensory responses are translated into oral motor actions. To investigate whether the oral somatosensory cortex processes food-related sensations and movements, we performed in vivo whole-cell recordings and motor mapping experiments in rats. Neurons in the oral somatosensory cortex showed robust post-synaptic and sparse action potential responses to air puffs. Membrane potential showed that cold water evoked larger responses than room temperature or hot water. Most neurons showed no clear tuning of responses to bitter, sweet, and neutral gustatory stimuli. Finally, motor mapping experiments with histological verification revealed an initiation of movements related to food consumption behavior, such as jaw opening and tongue protrusions. We conclude that the somatosensory cortex: (i) provides a representation of the temperature of oral stimuli, (ii) does not systematically encode taste information, and (iii) influences orofacial movements related to food consummatory behavior.
| Item Type: | Journal Article |
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| Publication: | Scientific Reports |
| Publisher: | Nature Publishing Group |
| Additional Information: | The copyright for this article belongs to the Author. |
| Keywords: | animal; animal model; brain mapping; eating; electrode implant; Long Evans rat; male; microelectrode; mouth; nerve cell; patch clamp technique; physiology; procedures; rat; somatosensory cortex; synaptic potential; taste; temperature, Animals; Brain Mapping; Eating; Electrodes, Implanted; Male; Microelectrodes; Models, Animal; Mouth; Neurons; Patch-Clamp Techniques; Rats; Rats, Long-Evans; Somatosensory Cortex; Synaptic Potentials; Taste Perception; Temperature |
| Department/Centre: | Division of Biological Sciences > Molecular Biophysics Unit |
| Date Deposited: | 23 Aug 2022 09:50 |
| Last Modified: | 23 Aug 2022 09:50 |
| URI: | https://eprints.iisc.ac.in/id/eprint/76199 |
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