Anatomically and functionally distinct thalamocortical inputs to primary and secondary mouse whisker somatosensory cortices

Sami El-Boustani (), B. Semihcan Sermet, Georgios Foustoukos, Tess B. Oram, Ofer Yizhar and Carl C. H. Petersen ()
Additional contact information
Sami El-Boustani: Faculty of Life Sciences, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL)
B. Semihcan Sermet: Faculty of Life Sciences, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL)
Georgios Foustoukos: Faculty of Life Sciences, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL)
Tess B. Oram: Weizmann Institute of Science
Ofer Yizhar: Weizmann Institute of Science
Carl C. H. Petersen: Faculty of Life Sciences, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL)

Nature Communications, 2020, vol. 11, issue 1, 1-12

Abstract: Abstract Subdivisions of mouse whisker somatosensory thalamus project to cortex in a region-specific and layer-specific manner. However, a clear anatomical dissection of these pathways and their functional properties during whisker sensation is lacking. Here, we use anterograde trans-synaptic viral vectors to identify three specific thalamic subpopulations based on their connectivity with brainstem. The principal trigeminal nucleus innervates ventral posterior medial thalamus, which conveys whisker-selective tactile information to layer 4 primary somatosensory cortex that is highly sensitive to self-initiated movements. The spinal trigeminal nucleus innervates a rostral part of the posterior medial (POm) thalamus, signaling whisker-selective sensory information, as well as decision-related information during a goal-directed behavior, to layer 4 secondary somatosensory cortex. A caudal part of the POm, which apparently does not receive brainstem input, innervates layer 1 and 5A, responding with little whisker selectivity, but showing decision-related modulation. Our results suggest the existence of complementary segregated information streams to somatosensory cortices.

Date: 2020
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-17087-7 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:11:y:2020:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-020-17087-7

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-17087-7

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().