Encoding of vibrotactile stimuli by mechanoreceptors in rodent glabrous skin

Abstract

Somatosensory coding in rodents has been mostly studied in the whisker system and hairy skin, whereas the function of low-threshold mechanoreceptors (LTMRs) in rodent glabrous skin has received scant attention, unlike in primates where glabrous skin has been the focus. The relative activation of different LTMR subtypes carries information about vibrotactile stimuli, as does the rate and temporal patterning of LTMR spikes. Rate coding depends on the probability of a spike occurring on each stimulus cycle (reliability) whereas temporal coding depends on the timing of spikes relative to the stimulus cycle (precision). Using in vivo extracellular recordings in rats and mice, we measured the reliability and precision of LTMR responses to different tactile stimuli including sustained pressure and vibration. Similar to other species, rodent LTMRs were separated into rapid-adapting (RA) or slow-adapting (SA) based on their response to sustained pressure. However, unlike the dichotomous frequency preference characteristic of RAI and RAII afferents in other species, rodent RAs fell along a continuum. Fitting generalized linear models (GLMs) to experimental data reproduced the reliability and precision of rodent RAs. The resulting model parameters highlight key mechanistic differences across the RA spectrum; specifically, the integration window of different RAs transitions from wide to narrow as tuning preferences across the population move from low to high frequencies. Our results show that rodent RAs can support both rate and temporal coding, but their heterogeneity suggests that co-activation patterns play a greater role in population coding than for dichotomously tuned primates RAs. Significance StatementOur sense of touch starts with activation of nerve fibres in the skin. Although response properties of various fibre types are well-established in other species (e.g. primates), quantitative characterization in rats and mice is limited. To fill this gap, we performed a comprehensive electrophysiological investigation into the coding properties of tactile fibres in rodent non-hairy skin and then simulated these fibres to explain differences in their responses. We show that rodent tactile fibres resemble those from other species, but that their heterogeneity at the population level may differ, with potentially important implications for encoding of touch. Simulations reveal intrinsic mechanisms that support this heterogeneity and provide a useful tool to explore somatosensation in rodents.