The motor cortex is a large frontal structure in the cerebral cortex of eutherian mammals. A
vast array of evidence implicates the motor cortex in the volitional control of motor output, but …

Rats sweep their vibrissae through space to locate objects in their immediate environment.
In essence, their view of the proximal world is generated through pliable hairs that tap and …

Whisking and sniffing are predominant aspects of exploratory behaviour in rodents. Yet the
neural mechanisms that generate and coordinate these and other orofacial motor patterns …

The rhythmic motor activity of the vibrissae that rodents use for the tactile localization of
objects provides a model system for understanding patterned motor activity in mammals …

Neuronal activity in the motor cortex is understood to be correlated with movements, but the
impact of action potentials (APs) in single cortical neurons on the generation of movement …

Mammals perform a multitude of well-coordinated orofacial behaviors such as breathing,
sniffing, chewing, licking, swallowing, vocalizing, and in rodents, whisking. The coordination …

Rats sweep their facial whiskers back and forth to generate tactile sensory information
through contact with environmental structure. The neural processes operating on the signals …

Mammals acquire much of their sensory information by actively moving their sensory organs.
Yet, the principles of encoding by active sensing are not known. Here we investigated the …

A defining feature of active sensing is the use of self-generated energy to probe the
environment. Familiar biological examples include echolocation in bats and dolphins and …

Animals actively regulate the position and movement of their sensory systems to boost the
quality and quantity of the sensory information they obtain. The rat vibrissal system is …