Bilateral receptive fields of cells in rat Sm1 cortex

Single cells in the primary somatosensory (Sm1) cortex were investigated for responses to bilateral hindpaw stimulation in Wistar rats anaesthetised by continuous intravenous administration of Althesin. Fifty-one percent of cells sampled (N = 134) responded to equivalent punctate mechanical stimuli delivered to both the contralateral and ipsilateral hindpaws under light anaesthesia. The distribution by cortical depth of cells with receptive fields (RFs) on both hindpaws was not significantly different from cells which had only contralateral RFs. No cell was found with a purely ipsilateral RF. For 86% of cells tested (N = 44) the ipsilateral RF was partly or completely homologous with areas within the contralateral RF. The sizes of ipsilateral RFs were smaller on 66% of occasions when tested against their contralateral RFs. Modal latencies to ipsilateral mechanical stimulation were longer than to contralateral stimulation (34.1 +/- 9.1 ms (S.D) cf. 26.4 +/- 7.2 ms, N = 44). Ipsilateral RFs were lost for 77% of cells tested following a 33% increase in anaesthetic infusion rate. Conditioning mechanical stimuli applied to the centre receptive field (CRF) on the ipsilateral hindpaw reduced or abolished a cell's responses to equivalent test stimuli applied to it's contralateral CRF with C-T intervals of 20-200 ms. Conditioning stimuli applied to the CRF contralateral to the cell reduced or abolished responses to test stimuli on the cell's ipsilateral CRF using C-T intervals of 0-900 ms. Responses in one cortex to stimulation of the ipsilateral hindpaw were unaffected by elimination of responses from the same hindpaw in the opposite contralateral Sm1 cortex, where responses had been suppressed by topical Lignocaine administration. Retrograde transport of horseradish peroxidase from hindpaw Sm1 cortex labelled many cells in homolateral thalamus, but failed to label cells in the entire forebrain contralateral to the injection site. It is concluded that direct crossed thalamo-cortical and callosal Sm1-Sm1 pathways do not contribute to the production of hindpaw ipsilateral receptive fields.