Vibrotactile coding capacities of spinocervical tract neurons in the cat

Genetically identified spinal interneurons integrating tactile afferents for motor control

Our movements are shaped by our perception of the world as communicated by our senses. Perception of sensory information has been largely attributed to cortical activity. However, a prior level of sensory processing occurs in the spinal cord. Indeed, sensory inputs directly project to many spinal circuits, some of which communicate with motor circuits within the spinal cord. Therefore, the processing of sensory information for the purpose of ensuring proper movements is distributed between spinal and supraspinal circuits. The mechanisms underlying the integration of sensory information for motor control at the level of the spinal cord have yet to be fully described. Recent research has led to the characterization of spinal neuron populations that share common molecular identities. Identification of molecular markers that define specific populations of spinal neurons is a prerequisite to the application of genetic techniques devised to both delineate the function of these spinal neurons and their connectivity. This strategy has been used in the study of spinal neurons that receive tactile inputs from sensory neurons innervating the skin. As a result, the circuits that include these spinal neurons have been revealed to play important roles in specific aspects of motor function. We describe these genetically identified spinal neurons that integrate tactile information and the contribution of these studies to our understanding of how tactile information shapes motor output. Furthermore, we describe future opportunities that these circuits present for shedding light on the neural mechanisms of tactile processing.

Processing of Vibrotactile Inputs From Hairy Skin by Neurons of the Dorsal Column Nuclei in the Cat

The capacity of single neurons of the dorsal column nuclei (DCN) for coding vibrotactile information from the hairy skin has been investigated in anesthetized cats to permit quantitative comparison first with the capacities of DCN neurons responding to glabrous skin vibrotactile inputs and second with those of spinocervical tract neurons responding to vibrotactile inputs from hairy skin. Dynamically sensitive tactile neurons of the DCN the input of which came from hairy skin could be divided into two classes, one associated with hair follicle afferent (HFA) input, the other with Pacinian corpuscle (PC) input. The HFA-related class was most sensitive to low-frequency (<50 Hz) vibration and had a graded response output as a function of vibrotactile intensity changes. PC-related neurons had a broader vibrotactile sensitivity, extending to ≥300 Hz and appeared to derive their input from the margins of hairy skin, near the footpads, or from deeper PC sources such as the interosseous membranes or joints. HFA-related neurons had phaselocked responses to vibration frequencies up to ∼75 Hz, whereas PC neurons retained this capacity up to frequencies of ∼300 Hz with tightest phaselocking between 50 and 200 Hz. Quantitative measures of phaselocking revealed that the HFA-related neurons provide the better signal of vibrotactile frequency up to ∼50 Hz with a switch-over to the PC-related neurons above that value. In conclusion, the functional capacities of these two classes of cuneate neuron appear to account for behavioral vibrotactile frequency discriminative performance in hairy skin, in contrast to the limited capacities of vibrotactile-sensitive neurons within the spinocervical tract system.