Barrel cortex

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The barrel cortex is the part of the somatosensory cortex of rodents where sensory inputs from the whiskers in the contralateral side of the body are represented. Inputs from the thalamus carrying information from a given whisker terminate in discrete areas of layer IV forming anatomically distinguishable areas called barrels, which are separated from each other by areas called septa. These structures were first discovered by Woolsey and Van der Loos (1970). Recognizing that the array was similar to that of the vibrissae on the mystacial pad, they hypothesized that the barrels were the "cortical correlates of the mystacial vibrissae" and that "one barrel represents one vibrissa".

Due to its clear anatomical structure and functional significance, the barrel cortex has played an important role in neuroscience. The majority of what is known about corticothalamic processing comes from studying the barrel cortex and researchers have intensively studied the barrel cortex as a model of neocortical column.

Neurons within the layer IV barrel cortex directly code for whisker displacement. That is to say, that the neuron within a given barrel will fire when the whisker that barrel represents is moved. These neurons also show directional sensitivity, certain neurons will only fire when the whisker is moved in a specific direction [1, 2].

Neurons in the barrel cortex exhibit the property of synaptic plasticity that allows them to alter the vibrissae to which they respond depending on the rodent's history of tactile experience [3]. The field of barrel cortex research has matured to the stage where a book has been published on the subject [4].

[edit] References

[1] Swadlow HA. Efferent neurons and suspected interneurons in S-1 vibrissa cortex of the awake rabbit: receptive fields and axonal properties. J Neurophysiol 62: 288–308, 1989

[2] Swadlow HA. Efferent neurons and suspected interneurons in second somatosensory cortex of the awake rabbit: receptive fields and axonal properties. J Neurophysiol 66: 1392–1409, 1991

[3] Hardingham N, Glazewski S, Pakhotin P, Mizuno K, Chapman PF, Giese KP, Fox K. Neocortical long-term potentiation and experience-dependent synaptic plasticity require alpha-calcium/calmodulin-dependent protein kinase II auto-phosphorylation. J Neurosci. 2003 Jun 1;23(11):4428-36.

[4] Fox, K. Barrel Cortex. Cambridge, New York, Melbourne. Cambridge University Press. 2008. ISBN 978-0-521-85217-3

[edit] External links

Research groups working on barrel cortex:

Books on barrel cortex

Barrel Cortex book, http://www.cambridge.org/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=9780521852173
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