Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience Berlin, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Berlin, Germany.
NeuroCure Cluster of Excellence, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Berlin, Germany.
J Comp Neurol. 2021 Jun;529(8):2070-2090. doi: 10.1002/cne.25073. Epub 2020 Dec 3.
Physiological studies of the last century mapped a somatosensory cortical gyrus representing the pig's rostrum. Here, we describe the extraordinary correspondence of this gyrus to the rostrum. The pig rostrum is packed with microvibrissae (~470 per hemi-rostrum) and innervated by a prominent infraorbital nerve, containing about 80,000 axons. The pig's rostrum has three major skin-folds. The nostrils have a rectangular medial wall and a funnel-like lateral opening, nasal channels run obliquely from lateral (surface) to medial (inside). The rostrum gyrus mimics rostrum geometry in great detail. The putative representation of skin folds coincides with blood sinus and folds of the rostrum gyrus. The putative nostril representation is an oblique sulcus running from lateral (surface) to medial (inside). As observed in rodents, Layer 4 is thin in the nostril sulcus. The side of the nostril sulcus representing the medial wall of the nostril is rectangular, whereas the side of the nostril sulcus representing the lateral wall is funnel-like. Proportions and geometry of the rostrum and the rostrum gyrus are similar, albeit with a collapsed nostril and a larger interindividual variability in the gyrus. The pig's cortical rostrum gyrus receives dense thalamic innervation, has a thin Layer 1 and contains roughly 8 million neurons. With all that, the rostrum gyrus looks like a model of the pig rostrum at a scale of ~1:2. Our findings are reminiscent of the raccoon cortex with its forepaw-like somatosensory forepaw-representation. Representing highly relevant afferents in three-dimensional body-part-models might facilitate isomorphic cortical computations in large-brained tactile specialists.
上个世纪的生理学研究描绘了一个代表猪吻部的躯体感觉皮质脑回。在这里,我们描述了这个脑回与吻部的非凡对应关系。猪的吻部布满了细小的触须(每半吻部约有 470 根),由一条突出的眶下神经支配,其中包含大约 80000 个轴突。猪的吻部有三个主要的皮肤褶皱。鼻孔有一个矩形的内侧壁和一个漏斗状的外侧开口,鼻道从外侧(表面)斜向内侧(内部)。吻部脑回非常详细地模拟了吻部的几何形状。推测的皮肤褶皱代表与吻部脑回的血窦和褶皱相对应。推测的鼻孔代表从外侧(表面)到内侧(内部)斜向延伸的沟。与在啮齿动物中观察到的一样,第四层在鼻孔沟中很薄。代表鼻孔内侧壁的鼻孔沟的一侧是矩形的,而代表鼻孔外侧壁的鼻孔沟的一侧是漏斗状的。尽管鼻孔沟的形状塌陷,且脑回的个体间变异性较大,但吻部和吻部脑回的比例和几何形状是相似的。猪的皮质吻部脑回接受密集的丘脑神经支配,具有薄的第一层,并且包含大约 800 万个神经元。所有这些都使得吻部脑回看起来像是猪吻部的模型,比例约为 1:2。我们的发现让人想起浣熊的大脑皮层,其具有类似前爪的躯体感觉前爪代表。在三维身体部位模型中代表高度相关的传入信息可能有助于大型触觉专家的皮层计算的同态化。