Grant, R. A., Sperber, A. L. and Prescott, T. J. (2012) The role of orienting in vibrissal touch sensing. Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience, 6. 39. ISSN 1662-5153
Abstract
Rodents, such as rats and mice, are strongly tactile animals who explore the environment with their long mobile facial whiskers, or macrovibrissae, and orient to explore objects further with their shorter, more densely packed, microvibrissae. Although whisker motion (whisking) has been extensively studied, less is known about how rodents orient their vibrissal system to investigate unexpected stimuli. We describe two studies that address this question. In the first we seek to characterize how adult rats orient toward unexpected macrovibrissal contacts with objects and examine the microvibrissal exploration behavior following such contacts. We show that rats orient to the nearest macrovibrissal contact on an unexpected object, progressively homing in on the nearest contact point on the object in each subsequent whisk. Following contact, rats “dab” against the object with their microvibrissae at an average rate of approximately 8 Hz, which suggests synchronization of microvibrissal dabbing with macrovibrissal motion, and an amplitude of 5 mm. In study two, we examine the role of orienting to tactile contacts in developing rat pups for maintaining aggregations (huddles). We show that young pups are able to orient to contacts with nearby conspecifics before their eyes open implying an important role for the macrovibrissae, which are present from birth, in maintaining contact with conspecifics. Overall, these data suggest that orienting to tactile cues, detected by the vibrissal system, plays a crucial role throughout the life of a rat.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2012 Grant, Sperber and Prescott. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in other forums, provided the original authors and source are credited and subject to any copyright notices concerning any third-party graphics etc. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ |
Keywords: | Orienting; whisking; huddling; tactile fovea; development; active sensing; superior colliculus |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Science (Sheffield) > Department of Psychology (Sheffield) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 14 Nov 2016 11:57 |
Last Modified: | 14 Nov 2016 12:01 |
Published Version: | http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnbeh.2012.00039 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Frontiers Media |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.3389/fnbeh.2012.00039 |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:107049 |
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