Year: 2021
Type: article
Abstract: Mammals use glabrous (hairless) skin of their hands and feet to navigate and manipulate their environment. Cortical maps of the body surface across species contain disproportionately large numbers of neurons dedicated to glabrous skin sensation, in part reflecting a higher density of mechanoreceptors that innervate these skin regions. Here, we find that disproportionate representation of glabrous skin emerges over postnatal development at the first synapse between peripheral mechanoreceptors and their central targets in the brainstem. Mechanoreceptor synapses undergo developmental refinement that depends on proximity of their terminals to glabrous skin, such that those innervating glabrous skin make synaptic connections that expand their central representation. In mice incapable of sensing gentle touch, mechanoreceptors innervating glabrous skin still make more powerful synapses in the brainstem. We propose that the skin region a mechanoreceptor innervates controls the developmental refinement of its central synapses to shape the representation of touch in the brain.
Source: Cell
Institutions: Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Harvard University
Language: English
Subfield: Cognitive Neuroscience
Field: Neuroscience
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
Estimated APC paid: $9,900
Awards: Toward mechanistic cognitive neuroscience: cell types, connectivity, and patterned perturbations, G138391424, Contextual Representation of Tactile Information in Mouse Primary Somatosensory Cortex, G1649372110, G3480356398, G4714321801, Parietal Cortex Networks for Sensorimotor Processing During Navigation, Genetic Dissection of Direct and Indirect Touch Pathways, Boston Children's Hospital/HMS Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities Research Center, Contextual Representation of Tactile Information in Mouse Primary Somatosensory Cortex
OpenAlex ID: W3207857709