Topic
Somatosensory system
About: Somatosensory system is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 6371 publications have been published within this topic receiving 316900 citations.
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TL;DR: It is found that electrical stimulation in all thalamic nuclei elicited large, glutamatergic excitatory postsynaptic potentials (EPSPs) that depress in response to repetitive stimulation and that fail to activate a metabotropic glutamate response, which suggests an alternate route for information transfer between cortical areas via a corticothalamocortical pathway.
Abstract: The thalamus is an essential structure in the mammalian forebrain conveying information topographically from the sensory periphery to primary neocortical areas. Beyond this initial processing stage, "higher-order" thalamocortical connections have been presumed to serve only a modulatory role, or are otherwise functionally disregarded. Here we demonstrate that these "higher-order" thalamic nuclei share similar synaptic properties with the "first-order" thalamic nuclei. Using whole cell recordings from layer 4 neurons in thalamocortical slice preparations in the mouse somatosensory and auditory systems, we found that electrical stimulation in all thalamic nuclei elicited large, glutamatergic excitatory postsynaptic potentials (EPSPs) that depress in response to repetitive stimulation and that fail to activate a metabotropic glutamate response. In contrast, the intracortical inputs from layer 6 to layer 4 exhibit facilitating EPSPs. These data suggest that higher-order thalamocortical projections may serve a functional role similar to the first-order nuclei, whereas both are physiologically distinct from the intracortical layer 6 inputs. These results suggest an alternate route for information transfer between cortical areas via a corticothalamocortical pathway.
157 citations
TL;DR: Using an analogous APTS protocol in humans revealed an increase of spatial discrimination performance indicating that fast plastic processes based on co-activation patterns act on a cortical and perceptual level.
Abstract: We used a protocol of associative (Hebbian) pairing of tactile stimulation (APTS) to evoke cortical plastic changes Reversible reorganization of the adult rat paw representations in somatosensory cortex (SI) induced by a few hours of APTS included selective enlargement of the areas of cortical neurones representing the stimulated skin fields and of the corresponding receptive fields (RFs) Late, presumably NMDA receptor-mediated response components were enhanced, indicating an involvement of glutamatergic synapses A control protocol of identical stimulus pattern applied to only a single skin site revealed no changes of RFs, indicating that co-activation is crucial for induction Using an analogous APTS protocol in humans revealed an increase of spatial discrimination performance indicating that fast plastic processes based on co-activation patterns act on a cortical and perceptual level
157 citations
TL;DR: The authors' analysis confirms the participation of multiple cortical areas, located on either side of the central sulcus, in the generation of the initial cortical SEP components, and has direct implications for the clinical interpretation of SEP waveforms.
156 citations
TL;DR: TACS could be used as a powerful online stimulation technique to reveal the causal roles of oscillatory brain activities and highlight the frequency dependency of effective tACS over SI with the effective frequencies corresponding to those observed in previous electroencephalography/magnetoencephalographic studies of tactile perception.
Abstract: Oscillatory neuronal activities are commonly observed in response to sensory stimulation. However, their functional roles are still the subject of debate. One-way to probe the roles of oscillatory neural activities is to deliver alternating current to the cortex at biologically relevant frequencies and examine whether such stimulation influences perception and cognition. In this study, we tested whether transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS) over the primary somatosensory cortex (SI) could elicit tactile sensations in humans in a frequency-dependent manner. We tested the effectiveness of tACS over SI at frequency bands ranging from 2 to 70 Hz. Our results show that stimulation in alpha (10-14 Hz) and high gamma (52-70 Hz) frequency range produces a tactile sensation in the contralateral hand. A weaker effect was also observed for beta (16-20 Hz) stimulation. These findings highlight the frequency dependency of effective tACS over SI with the effective frequencies corresponding to those observed in previous electroencephalography/magnetoencephalography studies of tactile perception. Our present study suggests that tACS could be used as a powerful online stimulation technique to reveal the causal roles of oscillatory brain activities.
156 citations
TL;DR: Results indicate that SII and/or associated cortices in parietal operculum, often viewed as higher-order processing areas for somatosensory perception, are coactivated with SI during the early processing of intermittent somatoensory input.
Abstract: Simultaneous early processing of sensory input in human primary (SI) and secondary (SII) somatosensory cortices. The anatomic connectivity of the somatosensory system supports the simultaneous part...
156 citations