Assessing the Requirement of Mouse Primary Somatosensory Cortex (S1) for Perception of Movement Direction Public

Abstract

The somatosensory system, a network of neurons crucial to our sense of touch, enables us to recognize objects, discern textures, and integrate sensory-motor feedback. Specifically, the generation of directional perception in touch is essential to our understanding of the world around us by providing aspects of our spatial awareness, pain localization, survival instincts, and motor control; yet our understanding of how computations of sensory inputs to generate directional selectivity are carried out in the somatosensory system remains underexplored. Preliminary research has suggested that a significant role of the somatosensory cortex is to extract higher order features of tactile stimuli such as directional perception from peripheral somatosensory afferent signals. Here, we use optogenetic silencing on VGAT-ChR2 mice trained to behaviorally discriminate tactile direction on the forepaw to assess the necessity to which forepaw somatosensory cortex (FS1) is needed for directional perception. Specifically, we found that photoinhibition of FS1 resulted in a noticeable decrease in discrimination performance in VGAT-ChR2 mice compared to the photoinhibition of other areas. While this decrease did not reach the threshold of statistical significance, the observed trend indicates a potential influence of FS1 activity in directional perception. This project aims to discern the areas involved with computing higher order features of tactile stimuli to gain a deeper understanding of sensory processing. By doing so, further progress can be made to help individuals with neurological disorders that affect tactile sensation processing.

Table of Contents

Introduction 1

Directional Selectivity 1

Evidence for Directional Selectivity in Primary Somatosensory Cortex (S1) 1

Optogenetic S1 Silencing to Determine its Role in Directional Perception 2

Methods 5

Mice Model 5

Surgical Procedures: Optical Window Implantation 5

Optogenetics 5

Stimulus and Apparatus Construction 7

Behavioral Paradigm 8

Results 10

Discussion 17

References 21

About this Honors Thesis

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School	Emory College
Department	Neuroscience and Behavioral Biology
Degree	B.S.
Submission	Honors Thesis
Language	English
Research Field	Biology, Neuroscience Biology, Cell
Mot-clé	Neuroscience Optogenetics
Committee Chair / Thesis Advisor	Alan Emanuel, Emory University
Committee Members	Paul Lennard, Emory University Chris Rodgers, Emory University

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