Highlights•Whisker follicle forces are shaped by whisker motion and mechanical
properties.•Forces are encoded by temporally precise, heterogeneous primary afferent …

Our sensory receptors are faced with an onslaught of different environmental inputs. Each
sensory event or encounter with an object involves a distinct combination of physical energy …

The array of whiskers on the snout provides rodents with tactile sensory information relating
to the size, shape and texture of objects in their immediate environment. Rodents can use …

A major challenge of sensory systems neuroscience is to quantify brain activity underlying
perceptual experiences and to explain this activity as the outcome of elemental neuronal …

The ability of rats using their whiskers to perform fine tactile discrimination rivals that of
humans using their fingertips. Rats must perform these discriminations rapidly and …

One of the great challenges of systems neuroscience is to understand how the neocortex
transforms neuronal representations of the physical characteristics of sensory stimuli into the …

How the brain encodes relevant sensory stimuli in the context of active, natural sensation is
not known. During active tactile sensation by rodents, whisker movement across surfaces …

How the somatosensory cortex (S1) encodes complex patterns of touch, such as those that
occur during tactile exploration, is poorly understood. In the mouse whisker S1, temporally …

In rat barrel cortex, feature encoding schemes uncovered during broadband whisker
stimulation are hard to reconcile with the simple stick-slip code observed during natural …

Whiskers are present on most mammals, and whisker specialists, such as rodents,
pinnipeds and insectivores, can actively position their whiskers to efficiently guide …