Comparison of bilateral whisker movement in freely exploring and head-fixed adult rats.
Comparison of bilateral whisker movement in freely exploring and head-fixed adult rats.
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自由探索和头部固定成年大鼠双侧胡须运动的比较。
DOI：
10.1080/08990220400015375
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发表时间：
2005
期刊：
影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
Ebner,FordF
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Sellien,Heike;Eshenroder,DonnaS;Ebner,FordF
老鼠在对环境进行触觉探索时，会主动移动胡须。胡须来自神经密集的须囊，这些须囊由内在面部肌肉单独运动，并由外在肌肉作为一个群体运动。对正常成年大鼠在不受限制的探索过程中胡须运动的几项描述表明，大鼠在探索新环境时，胡须的运动频率在6-9赫兹范围内。在做出行为决定之前的短暂发作中，频率可以升高到近20赫兹。目前的研究比较了头部受限和自由活动的大鼠的胡须动态，这些大鼠的面部两侧有对称或不对称的胡须，并提供了一种描述，在探索大鼠时，剃光了面部一侧的胡须后，胡须的使用差异，这种情况已被证明能诱导强大的皮质可塑性。头部固定的老鼠经过训练，对着接触探测器伸长胡须，以足够的力量触发巧克力牛奶奖励。研究人员分析了胡须的运动，并将头部固定的动物的结果与自由奔跑的动物的结果进行了比较，这些实验是在它们最初探索阻碍大鼠沿着高架跑道前进的新物体时进行的。结果表明，对称的晶须运动受到任务性质和可用于探测的晶须数量的调节。当接触检测器的灵敏度（阈值）升高或降低时，或者当任务的性质需要从须的双边输入时，老鼠可以改变它们的须的运动。我们表明，与未修剪或对称修剪的胡须相比，修剪面部一侧的部分胡须（而不是全部胡须）可以改变胡须运动的同步性。
Rats move their whiskers actively during tactile exploration of their environment. The whiskers emanate from densely innervated whisker follicles that are moved individually by intrinsic facial muscles and as a group by extrinsic muscles. Several descriptions of whisker movements in normal adult rats during unrestrained exploration indicate that rats move their whiskers in the 6-9 Hz range when exploring a new environment. The rate can be elevated to nearly 20 Hz for brief episodes just prior to making a behavioural decision. The present studies were undertaken to compare whisker dynamics in head-restrained and freely moving rats with symmetrical or asymmetrical numbers of whiskers on the two sides of their face and to provide a description of differences in whisker use in exploring rats after trimming all but two whiskers on one side of the face, a condition that has been shown to induce robust cortical plasticity. Head-fixed rats were trained to protract their whiskers against a contact detector with sufficient force to trigger a chocolate milk reward. Whisker movements were analyzed, and the results from head-fixed animals were compared with free-running animals using trials taken during their initial exploration of novel objects that blocked the rat's progress down an elevated runway. The results show that symmetrical whisker movements are modulated both by the nature of the task and the number of whiskers available for exploration. Rats can change their whisker movements when the sensitivity (threshold) of a contact detector is raised or lowered, or when the nature of the task requires bilateral input from the whiskers. We show that trimming some, but not all whiskers on one side of the face modifies the synchrony of whisker movement compared to untrimmed or symmetrically trimmed whiskers.