Widespread spatial integration in primary somatosensory cortex

摘要: Tactile discrimination depends on integration of information from the discrete receptive fields (RFs) peripheral sensory afferents. Because this is processed over a hierarchy subcortical nuclei and cortical areas, likely occurs at multiple levels. The current study presents results indicating that neurons across most extent hand representation in monkey primary somatosensory cortex (area 3b) interact, even when these have separate RFs. We obtained simultaneous recordings by using 100-electrode array implanted two anesthetized owl monkeys. During series 0.5-s skin indentations with single or dual probes, distance between electrodes which synchronized spike times were recorded exceeded 2 mm. provide evidence stimuli different parts influence degree synchronous firing among large population neurons. synchrony potentiates activation commonly targeted neurons, neural activity can contribute to complex tactile stimuli.