Development of the Somatic Sensory System

躯体感觉系统的发展

• 批准号: 8617085
• 负责人: Mary Carlson
• 金额: $ 13.16万
• 依托单位: Washington University School of Medicine
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 1987
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 1987-06-15 至 1989-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=8617085&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Development; Somatic; Sensory; System

This three.year project will examine the development of tactile discrimination. It is known that information on touch projects to a region of the brain labelled S1, the primary somatosensory cortex. Single nerve cells in S1 respond to touch applied to particular local areas of the body, and the area eliciting a response is called the "receptive field" of that cell. The most effective tactile stimulus for the receptive field of a given cell may have particular spatial features (such as preference for small points, or separation distance between points) and temporal features (such as rapidly vibrating or moving points, or a maintained touch). In recent studies in kittens, the responses of cortical cells appeared to be limited compared to those in adults. Yet in monkeys, infants show touch discrimination that is at least equal to adults. This study will examine S1 neurons and psychophysical thresholds in response to patterned tactile stimulation, in macaque monkeys during the first year of age. Response types will be classified by their capacity to code spatial and temporal features of geometric dot patterns applied to the skin of the hand. The stimuli will be presented by an automated discrimination apparatus. Both behavioral discriminations (using a "same or different" decision) and neuronal firing patterns will be quantitatively measured. It is expected that the capacity of neurons to signal differences between different surfaces will relate to the capacity to make behavioral discriminations among these same surfaces.

这三个。本课题将探讨触觉辨别的发展。我们知道，触摸的信息投射到大脑的S1区域，即初级体感皮层。S1的单个神经细胞对身体特定区域的触摸产生反应，引起反应的区域被称为该细胞的“接受野”。对于给定细胞的感受野来说，最有效的触觉刺激可能具有特定的空间特征（如对小点的偏好，或点之间的距离）和时间特征（如快速振动或移动的点，或持续的触摸）。在最近对小猫的研究中，与成人相比，皮质细胞的反应似乎有限。然而，在猴子身上，婴儿表现出的触觉辨别能力至少与成年人相当。本研究将在一岁的猕猴中检测S1神经元和心理物理阈值对模式触觉刺激的反应。响应类型将根据它们对应用于手部皮肤的几何点图案的空间和时间特征进行编码的能力进行分类。刺激将由自动识别装置呈现。行为区别（使用“相同或不同”的决定）和神经元放电模式都将被定量测量。预计神经元在不同表面之间发出不同信号的能力将与在这些相同表面之间做出行为区分的能力有关。