The rat whisker system has been a longstanding and fruitful model system for sensory neuroscience, because of its status as an œexpert active sensing system, and many open avenues of research still remain. One large-scale goal of the field is to œclose the loop from sensation to movement, modeling how sensory input is acquired, transformed and then used to select and refine specific motor programs, which in turn affect future sensation. This process must take into account the animals embodiment “ the morphology, physiology, biomechanics, and affordances of bodies “ because the body is the intermediary between the brain and the world. The present work begins by describing the embodiment of the rat whisker system in detail, first at the level of individual whisker morphology and then at the level of the entire whisker array. However, as neuroscientists we are not only concerned with the morphology of organisms, but are also interested in behaviors and neural processing. Therefore, we also predict ways in which this embodiment can affect the rats neural processing, first looking at whisker motor control, and then at sensory processing in second order sensory neurons. Finally, we begin to generalize this analysis to other species. We construct a similar morphological model of mice and contrast the findings with the model of the closely related rat, and the much more evolutionarily distant harbor seal. In all, this work documents intricate morphological relationships within the whisker system and predicts some mechanisms through which this morphology may facilitate active sensing, highlighting the importance of considering embodiment for sensory-motor neuroscience.

Last modified

• 11/20/2019

Creator

• Chris Shelley Bresee

DOI

• https://doi.org/10.21985/n2-dqnr-fs52

Subject

• Biomedical Engineering

Keyword

• sensorimotor
• rat
• whisker
• Embodiment
• sensory
• morphology

Date created

• 2018-01-01

Resource type

• Dissertation

Rights statement

• In Copyright