A systematic analysis of neurons with large somatosensory receptive fields covering multiple body regions in the secondary somatosensory area of macaque monkeys
| Autor: | Miki Taoka, Michio Tanaka, Takashi Toda, Sayaka Hihara, Yoshiaki Iwamura, Atsushi Iriki |
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| Rok vydání: | 2016 |
| Předmět: |
Male
0301 basic medicine genetic structures Physiology Sensory Processing Biology Somatosensory system Brain mapping Macaque 03 medical and health sciences large receptive field 0302 clinical medicine Physical Stimulation biology.animal Forelimb medicine Animals Single-unit recording skin and connective tissue diseases Neurons Brain Mapping Secondary somatosensory cortex General Neuroscience Torso Somatosensory Cortex single-unit recording Electrodes Implanted Hindlimb 030104 developmental biology medicine.anatomical_structure Receptive field Macaca awake macaque monkey Body region Head Neuroscience 030217 neurology & neurosurgery secondary somatosensory area |
| Zdroj: | Journal of Neurophysiology |
| ISSN: | 1522-1598 0022-3077 |
| DOI: | 10.1152/jn.00241.2016 |
| Popis: | Receptive fields (RFs) of the secondary somatosensory cortex of Japanese monkeys were analyzed. We found large RFs, mostly bilateral ones, covering more than one body region when the entire body was divided into the four: forelimb, hindlimb, trunk, and head. Two tendencies of RF enlargement—interconnecting limb extremities and the mouth and expansion of the trunk RF toward limb extremities to cover the entire body—were found. Neurons with either tendency were distributed in a specific subregion. Previous neurophysiological studies performed in macaque monkeys have revealed complex somatosensory responses in the secondary somatosensory area (SII), such as large receptive fields (RFs), as well as bilateral ones. However, systematic analyses of neurons with large RFs have not been performed. In the present study, we recorded single-unit activities in SII of awake macaque monkeys to investigate systematically large RFs by dividing the whole body into four body regions (head, trunk, forelimb, and hindlimb). Recorded neurons were classified into two types, according to whether the RFs were confined to one body region: single (n = 817) and combined (n = 282) body-region types. These two types were distinct in terms of the percentage of bilateral RFs: 55% in the single-region type and 90% in the combined type, demonstrating that two types of RF enlargement occur simultaneously in the combined type, namely, RF convergence from different body regions and RF convergence from both hemibodies. Among the combined-type RFs, two tendencies of RF convergence were found: 1) the distal parts of the limbs (i.e., hand and foot) and the mouth are interconnected, and 2) the trunk RFs extend continuously toward the distal parts of the limb and head to cover the entire body surface. Our distribution analysis on unfolded maps clarified that neurons having RFs with these two tendencies were distributed within specific subregions in SII. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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