Colins Rodriguez Andrea, Loft Michaela S E, Schiessl Ingo, Maravall Miguel, Petersen Rasmus S
Division of Neuroscience, School of Biological Sciences, Faculty of Biology, Medicine and Health, University of Manchester, Manchester, M13 9PT, UK.
Geoffrey Jefferson Brain Research Centre, Manchester Academic Health Science Centre, Northern Care Alliance NHS Foundation Trust, University of Manchester, Manchester, M6 8HD, UK.
Sci Rep. 2024 Sep 16;14(1):21588. doi: 10.1038/s41598-024-70524-1.
Sensory Adaptation (SA) is a prominent aspect of how neurons respond to sensory signals, ubiquitous across species and modalities. However, SA depends on the activation state of the brain and the extent to which SA is expressed in awake, behaving animals during active sensation remains unclear. Here, we addressed this question by training head-fixed mice to detect an object using their whiskers and recording neuronal activity from barrel cortex whilst simultaneously imaging the whiskers in 3D. We found that neuronal responses decreased during the course of whisker-object touch sequences and that this was due to two factors. First, a motor effect, whereby, during a sequence of touches, later touches were mechanically weaker than early ones. Second, a sensory encoding effect, whereby neuronal tuning to touch became progressively less sensitive during the course of a touch sequence. The sensory encoding effect was whisker-specific. These results show that SA does occur during active whisker sensing and suggest that SA is fundamental to sensation during natural behaviour.
感觉适应（SA）是神经元对感觉信号作出反应的一个显著特征，在所有物种和感觉模态中普遍存在。然而，感觉适应取决于大脑的激活状态，并且在清醒的、有行为的动物进行主动感知时感觉适应的表达程度仍不清楚。在这里，我们通过训练头部固定的小鼠用胡须检测物体，并记录桶状皮层的神经元活动，同时对胡须进行三维成像，来解决这个问题。我们发现，在胡须与物体接触的序列过程中，神经元反应会降低，这是由两个因素导致的。第一，一种运动效应，即在一系列触摸过程中，后期的触摸在机械上比早期的触摸更弱。第二，一种感觉编码效应，即在触摸序列过程中，神经元对触摸的调谐变得逐渐不那么敏感。感觉编码效应是特定于胡须的。这些结果表明，感觉适应确实发生在主动胡须感知过程中，并表明感觉适应是自然行为中感知的基础。
