Topic: somatotopic organization

The vibrissae system in rodents, akin to human hands and fingers, facilitates somatosensory information retrieval from individual whiskers during object exploration and recognition. Similar to the enhanced somatosensation in humans with separated digits, the critical ability of mice to sense objects through multiple whiskers in distinct streams is maintained through the precise somatotopic organization in the Brainstem → Thalamus → Cortex axis. This organization results in the formation of barrels and intervening "spaces" known as septa. Our in-vivo silicon probe recordings, conducted simultan

Mechanosensory neurons across the body have axon projections that terminate in distinct arborizations in the brain corresponding to body location. These somatotopically-organized projections provide the interface with neural circuits that direct body location-appropriate behavioral responses, such as aimed grooming. Using electron microscopy-based reconstructions, we investigate how circuits transform mechanical stimulations into location-appropriate behavior. We previously described the somatotopic organization of bristle mechanosensory neurons (BMNs) around the Drosophila head that elicit a

Mechanosensory neurons located on the body surface show somatotopic organization in their projections into the central nervous system and elicit diverse behavioral responses, from relatively simple stimulus location-aimed movements to complex movement sequences. How mechanosensory neurons and their postsynaptic circuits influence such diverse behaviors remains unclear. We previously identified nearly all mechanosensory neurons around the Drosophila head whose individual stimulation elicit aimed grooming of specific head parts (e.g. eyes or mouthparts) while their simultaneous stimulation elici