title: A mutant with bilateral whisker to barrel inputs unveils somatosensory mapping rules in the cerebral cortex.
abstract: In mammals, tactile information is mapped topographically onto the contralateral side of the brain in the primary somatosensory cortex (S1). In this study, we describe Robo3 mouse mutants in which a sizeable fraction of the trigemino-thalamic inputs project ipsilaterally rather than contralaterally. The resulting mixture of crossed and uncrossed sensory inputs creates bilateral whisker maps in the thalamus and cortex. Surprisingly, these maps are segregated resulting in duplication of whisker representations and doubling of the number of barrels without changes in the size of S1. Sensory deprivation shows competitive interactions between the ipsi/contralateral whisker maps. This study reveals that the somatosensory system can form a somatotopic map to integrate bilateral sensory inputs, but organizes the maps in a different way from that in the visual or auditory systems. Therefore, while molecular pre-patterning constrains their orientation and position, preservation of the continuity of inputs defines the layout of the somatosensory maps.
authors.affiliation: Sorbonne Universités, UPMC Univ Paris 06, INSERM, CNRS, Institut de la Vision, Paris, France.
authors.forename: Nicolas
authors.identifier: 0000-0003-2642-4402
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Renier
authors.affiliation: Sorbonne Universités, UPMC Univ Paris 06, INSERM, CNRS, Institut de la Vision, Paris, France.
authors.forename: Chloé
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Dominici
authors.affiliation: Department of Anatomy and Neurobiology, University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, United States.
authors.forename: Reha S
authors.initials: RS
authors.lastname: Erzurumlu
authors.affiliation: Friedrich Miescher Institute for Biomedical Research, Basel, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Claudius F
authors.identifier: 0000-0002-5646-3114
authors.initials: CF
authors.lastname: Kratochwil
authors.affiliation: Friedrich Miescher Institute for Biomedical Research, Basel, Switzerland.|University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Filippo M
authors.identifier: 0000-0003-0515-0182
authors.initials: FM
authors.lastname: Rijli
authors.affiliation: INSERM, Institut du Fer à Moulin, Paris, France.
authors.forename: Patricia
authors.identifier: 0000-0003-4217-5717
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Gaspar
authors.affiliation: Sorbonne Universités, UPMC Univ Paris 06, INSERM, CNRS, Institut de la Vision, Paris, France.
authors.forename: Alain
authors.identifier: 0000-0001-7577-3794
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Chédotal
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D008565:Membrane Proteins / Q000235:genetics*; D051379:Mice; D009419:Nerve Tissue Proteins / Q000235:genetics*; D009434:Neural Pathways / Q000033:anatomy & histology*; D011956:Receptors, Cell Surface; D013003:Somatosensory Cortex / Q000502:physiology*; D000097905:Roundabout Proteins
chemical_list: D008565:Membrane Proteins; D009419:Nerve Tissue Proteins; D011956:Receptors, Cell Surface; C118348:Robo3 protein, mouse; D000097905:Roundabout Proteins
keywords: Robo; Robo3; Slit; barrel cortex; developmental biology; mouse; neuroscience; plasticity; roundabout; stem cells