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Somatosensation

Somatosensation

The somatosensory system relays sensory information from the skin, mucous membranes, limbs, and joints. Somatosensation is more familiarly known as the sense of touch. A typical somatosensory pathway includes three types of long neurons: primary, secondary, and tertiary. Primary neurons have cell bodies located near the spinal cord in groups of neurons called dorsal root ganglia. The sensory neurons of ganglia innervate designated areas of skin called dermatomes.

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Responses to Pattern-Violating Visual Stimuli Evolve Differently Over Days in Somata and Distal Apical Dendrites.

Colleen J Gillon^1,2,3, Jason E Pina^4,5, Jérôme A Lecoq⁶

¹Department of Biological Sciences, University of Toronto Scarborough, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

The Journal of Neuroscience : the Official Journal of the Society for Neuroscience

|November 21, 2023

Summary

The neocortex predicts sensory input, but how it processes unexpected stimuli differs between neuronal cell bodies and dendrites. Somata become less sensitive to pattern violations, while dendrites become more sensitive over time.

Keywords:

distal apical dendrites hierarchy neocortex pyramidal neurons sensory prediction unsupervised learning

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Area of Science:

Neuroscience
Computational Neuroscience
Sensory Processing

Background:

The neocortex is hypothesized to generate predictions of sensory input by learning patterns.
Previous studies show distinct neural responses to expected versus unexpected visual stimuli.
The differential processing of these stimuli in neuronal compartments like somata and dendrites remains unclear.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate differences in pattern-violation signals between neuronal somata and distal apical dendrites.
To examine the temporal evolution of these signals with increasing experience.
To understand the role of different neuronal compartments in sensory prediction and learning.

Main Methods:

Analysis of neuronal responses in layer 2/3 and layer 5 pyramidal neurons in the primary visual cortex of mice.
Utilizing two-photon calcium imaging to record activity from individual somata and dendritic branches over multiple days.
Employing Gabor patch sequences to generate pattern-matching and pattern-violating visual stimuli.

Main Results:

A significant difference in responses to pattern-matching versus pattern-violating stimuli was observed in many neurons.
Neuronal responses evolved in opposing directions in somata and distal apical dendrites.
Somata showed decreased sensitivity to pattern-violating stimuli, while distal apical dendrites exhibited increased sensitivity over time.

Conclusions:

Neuronal somata and distal apical dendrites process sensory prediction errors differently.
These compartment-specific adaptations may be crucial for hierarchical sensory prediction and learning.
The findings highlight the distinct roles of bottom-up and top-down information integration in neuronal computation.