title: Microsecond-scale timing precision in rodent trigeminal primary afferents.
abstract: Communication in the nervous system occurs by spikes: the timing precision with which spikes are fired is a fundamental limit on neural information processing. In sensory systems, spike-timing precision is constrained by first-order neurons. We found that spike-timing precision of trigeminal primary afferents in rats and mice is limited both by stimulus speed and by electrophysiological sampling rate. High-speed video of behaving mice revealed whisker velocities of at least 17,000°/s, so we delivered an ultrafast "ping" (>50,000°/s) to single whiskers and sampled primary afferent activity at 500 kHz. Median spike jitter was 17.4 μs; 29% of neurons had spike jitter < 10 μs. These results indicate that the input stage of the trigeminal pathway has extraordinary spike-timing precision and very high potential information capacity. This timing precision ranks among the highest in biology.
authors: Faculty of Life Sciences, University of Manchester, Manchester M13 9PT, United Kingdom and Instituto de Neurociencias de Alicante UMH-CSIC, Sant Joan d'Alacant, 03550 Spain.
authors: Michael R
authors: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8562-962X
authors: MR
authors: Bale
authors: Faculty of Life Sciences, University of Manchester, Manchester M13 9PT, United Kingdom and.
authors: Dario
authors: http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9016-4575
authors: D
authors: Campagner
authors: Faculty of Life Sciences, University of Manchester, Manchester M13 9PT, United Kingdom and.
authors: Andrew
authors: http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4392-1873
authors: A
authors: Erskine
authors: Faculty of Life Sciences, University of Manchester, Manchester M13 9PT, United Kingdom and r.petersen@manchester.ac.uk.
authors: Rasmus S
authors: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5607-977X
authors: RS
authors: Petersen
mesh_terms: D000200:Action Potentials / Q000502:physiology; D000344:Afferent Pathways / Q000502:physiology*; D000818:Animals; D008297:Male; D051379:Mice; D008810:Mice, Inbred C57BL; D009068:Movement / Q000502:physiology*; D009474:Neurons / Q000502:physiology*; D010812:Physical Stimulation; D051381:Rats; D017207:Rats, Sprague-Dawley; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology; D012668:Trigeminal Ganglion / Q000166:cytology*; D014738:Vibrissae / Q000294:innervation*
keywords: neural coding; trigeminal ganglion; vibrissa; whisker