Sliman Bensmaia
James and Karen Frank Family Professor
Department of Organismal Biology and Anatomy
University of Chicago

Neural codes and computations along the primate somatosensory neuraxis 

Texture perception operates over a wide range of spatial scales and occupies a high dimensional space. To sense the texture of a surface, we move our skin across it, which gives rise to two types of skin deformations, each transduced by different tactile nerve fibers. One population of nerve fibers is sensitive to large scale deformations and carries a neural image of a texture’s coarse features; another population of nerve fibers responds to skin vibrations by producing precise temporally patterned responses. These two neural codes – spatial and temporal – define a spectrum of neural response properties in somatosensory cortex: Some neurons are sensitive to spatial patterns and encode coarse features, other neurons are sensitive to vibrations and encode fine features. While the texture responses of nerve fibers are dependent on scanning speed, a subset of cortical neurons are less so, giving rise to a speed invariant texture percept.

Host Information:
Francisco Salema Oom de Sacadura, [email protected]

The Columbia Neuroscience Seminar series is a collaborative effort of Columbia's Zuckerman Institute, the Department of Neuroscience, the Doctoral Program in Neurobiology and Behavior and the Columbia Translational Neuroscience Initiative, and with support from the Kavli Institute for Brain Science.