DOI: 10.1073/pnas.120018597. Neuronal correlates of sensory discrimination in the somatosensory cortex

Neuronal correlates of sensory discrimination in the somatosensory cortex

10.1073/pnas.120018597

Crossref journal-article

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (341)

Abstract

Monkeys are able to discriminate the difference in frequency between two periodic mechanical vibrations applied sequentially to the fingertips. It has been proposed that this ability is mediated by the periodicity of the responses in the quickly adapting (QA) neurons of the primary somatosensory cortex (S1), instead of the average firing rates. We recorded from QA neurons of S1 while monkeys performed the vibrotactile discrimination task. We found that the periodic mechanical vibrations can be represented both in the periodicity and in the firing rate responses to varying degrees across the QA neuronal population. We then computed neurometric functions by using both the periodicity and the firing rate and sought to determine which of these two measures is associated with the psychophysical performance. We found that neurometric thresholds based on the firing rate are very similar to the animal's psychometric thresholds whereas neurometric thresholds based on periodicity are far lower than those thresholds. These results indicate that an observer could solve this task with a precision similar to that of the monkey, based only on the firing rate produced during the stimulus periods.

Bibliography

HernÃ¡ndez, A., Zainos, A., & Romo, R. (2000). Neuronal correlates of sensory discrimination in the somatosensory cortex. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 97(11), 6191â6196.

Authors 3

Adrián Hernández (first)
Antonio Zainos (additional)
Ranulfo Romo (additional)

References 29 Referenced 173

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Dates

Type	When
Created	23 years, 1 month ago (July 26, 2002, 10:38 a.m.)
Deposited	3 years, 4 months ago (April 12, 2022, 8:49 p.m.)
Indexed	2 months, 4 weeks ago (June 9, 2025, 9:15 p.m.)
Issued	25 years, 3 months ago (May 16, 2000)
Published	25 years, 3 months ago (May 16, 2000)
Published Online	25 years, 3 months ago (May 16, 2000)
Published Print	25 years, 3 months ago (May 23, 2000)

Funders 0

None

BibTeX

@article{Hern_ndez_2000, title={Neuronal correlates of sensory discrimination in the somatosensory cortex}, volume={97}, ISSN={1091-6490}, url={http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.120018597}, DOI={10.1073/pnas.120018597}, number={11}, journal={Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences}, publisher={Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences}, author={Hernández, Adrián and Zainos, Antonio and Romo, Ranulfo}, year={2000}, month=may, pages={6191–6196} }

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