[Probcogsci] Talk by Blythe Towal: Frisky Whiskers: How different spatiotemporal scales of sensor movement affect tactile sensory acquisition in the rat whisker system

[Angela Yu]

Again, the talk is 1-2 in Natcomp Lab Seminar Room.

See you there,
Angela

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Angela J. Yu
Assistant Professor
Department of Cognitive Science
UCSD, Mail Code 0515
9500 Gilman Drive
La Jolla, CA 92093-0515

Email: ajyu at cogsci.ucsd.edu
Phone: 858-822-3317
Fax: 858-534-1128
Website: www.cogsci.ucsd.edu/~ajyu
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> From: Blythe Towal <b-towal at northwestern.edu>
> Date: March 4, 2010 8:33:09 PM PST
> To: "Yu, Angela" <ajyu at mail.ucsd.edu>
> Subject: title and abstract 
> 
> Hi Angela,
> 
> Here are the title and abstract of my talk:
> 
> Frisky Whiskers: How different spatiotemporal scales of sensor  
> movement affect tactile sensory acquisition in the rat whisker system
> 
> The rat vibrissal (whisker) system is a common model used to study  
> sensorimotor integration. Rats use rhythmic movements of their  
> vibrissae in concert with head movements to gather sensory  
> information. To date, however, whisking movements have generally been  
> studied in the absence of head movements. In this talk, I describe  
> three sets of experiments that have shed new light on the importance  
> of head movements, and have revealed at least two spatiotemporal  
> scales of sensory acquisition during the natural exploratory behavior  
> of the rat. In the first set of experiments, we show that right-left  
> whisking symmetry is strongly correlated with rotational head  
> velocity. Specifically, the rat positions its whiskers so as to ensure  
> a “look-ahead” distance of almost exactly one whisk, analogous to the  
> saccade that occurs during the initial portion of a combined head-eye  
> gaze shift. In the second set of experiments, we developed a light- 
> based contact sensor to measure the spatiotemporal patterns of whisker- 
> object contact during natural exploratory behaviors. Importantly,  
> these patterns were found to depend strongly on head movements, and  
> reflect electrophysiological properties of the barrel cortex, lending  
> behavioral relevance to the cortical dynamics observed in numerous in  
> vivo studies. In the third set of experiments we developed a  
> morphologically-accurate, digital model of the rat vibrissal array.  
> Preliminary simulation results showed remarkably similar patterns of  
> whisker-object contact as observed in our behavioral studies. These  
> simulations begin to disambiguate between the patterns of whisker- 
> object contact that occur due to array geometry, versus those patterns  
> that may be under active control by the rat. Together, these  
> experiments offer unprecedented quantification of the full  
> spatiotemporal pattern of inputs during exploratory behavior of the  
> rat, and highlight the perceptual importance of sensing and moving at  
> different spatiotemporal scales.
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Blythe Towal
> 
> Graduate Student and Presidential Fellow
> Hartmann laboratory
> Northwestern University
> PhD, June 2010 (expected)