title: Artificial spatiotemporal touch inputs reveal complementary decoding in neocortical neurons.
abstract: Investigations of the mechanisms of touch perception and decoding has been hampered by difficulties in achieving invariant patterns of skin sensor activation. To obtain reproducible spatiotemporal patterns of activation of sensory afferents, we used an artificial fingertip equipped with an array of neuromorphic sensors. The artificial fingertip was used to transduce real-world haptic stimuli into spatiotemporal patterns of spikes. These spike patterns were delivered to the skin afferents of the second digit of rats via an array of stimulation electrodes. Combined with low-noise intra- and extracellular recordings from neocortical neurons in vivo, this approach provided a previously inaccessible high resolution analysis of the representation of tactile information in the neocortical neuronal circuitry. The results indicate high information content in individual neurons and reveal multiple novel neuronal tactile coding features such as heterogeneous and complementary spatiotemporal input selectivity also between neighboring neurons. Such neuronal heterogeneity and complementariness can potentially support a very high decoding capacity in a limited population of neurons. Our results also indicate a potential neuroprosthetic approach to communicate with the brain at a very high resolution and provide a potential novel solution for evaluating the degree or state of neurological disease in animal models.
authors.affiliation: The BioRobotics Institute, Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna, Pisa, Italy.
authors.forename: Calogero M
authors.initials: CM
authors.lastname: Oddo
authors.affiliation: The BioRobotics Institute, Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna, Pisa, Italy.
authors.forename: Alberto
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Mazzoni
authors.affiliation: Neural Basis of Sensorimotor Control, Department of Experimental Medical Science, Lund University, Lund, Sweden.
authors.forename: Anton
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Spanne
authors.affiliation: Neural Basis of Sensorimotor Control, Department of Experimental Medical Science, Lund University, Lund, Sweden.
authors.forename: Jonas M D
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Enander
authors.affiliation: Neural Basis of Sensorimotor Control, Department of Experimental Medical Science, Lund University, Lund, Sweden.
authors.forename: Hannes
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Mogensen
authors.affiliation: Neural Basis of Sensorimotor Control, Department of Experimental Medical Science, Lund University, Lund, Sweden.
authors.forename: Fredrik
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Bengtsson
authors.affiliation: The BioRobotics Institute, Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna, Pisa, Italy.
authors.forename: Domenico
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Camboni
authors.affiliation: The BioRobotics Institute, Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna, Pisa, Italy.|Bertarelli Foundation Chair in Translational NeuroEngineering, Center for Neuroprosthetics and Institute of Bioengineering, School of Engineering, École Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Silvestro
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Micera
authors.affiliation: Neural Basis of Sensorimotor Control, Department of Experimental Medical Science, Lund University, Lund, Sweden.
authors.forename: Henrik
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Jörntell
mesh_terms: D000200:Action Potentials / Q000502:physiology; D000818:Animals; D005385:Fingers / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D008465:Mechanoreceptors / Q000502:physiology*; D023421:Models, Animal; D019579:Neocortex / Q000502:physiology*; D009474:Neurons / Q000502:physiology*; D010812:Physical Stimulation; D051381:Rats; D012879:Skin Physiological Phenomena; D055698:Touch Perception / Q000502:physiology*