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演題詳細

Poster

体性感覚
Somatosensory System

開催日 2014/9/13
時間 11:00 - 12:00
会場 Poster / Exhibition(Event Hall B)

ラットヒゲ感覚系の末梢における触覚情報符号化のメカニズム:中枢神経系における暗号解読の鍵として
Mechanisms of tactile encoding in the periphery of the rat whisker system: a key for decipherment of the secret code in the CNS

  • P3-155
  • 古田 貴寛 / Takahiro Furuta:1 榎原 智美 / Satomi Ebara:2 黒田 大地 / Daichi Kuroda:2 平井 大地 / Daichi Hirai:1 柴田 憲一 / Ken-ichi Shibata:1 宮崎 直幸 / Naoyuki Miyazaki:3 村田 和義 / Kazuyoshi Murata:3 金子 武嗣 / Takeshi Kaneko:1 Hartmann Mitra / Mitra Hartmann:4 
  • 1:京都大院・医・高次脳形態 / Dept. Morph. Brain Sci., Grad. Sch. Med., Kyoto Univ., Kyoto, Japan  2:明治国際医療大・解剖学ユニット / Dept. Anatomy, Meiji Univ. of Integrative Med., Kyoto Japan 3:生理研・電子顕微鏡グループ / Electron Microscopy Group, NIPS, Okazaki, Japan 4:Dept. Biomedical Engineering, Northwestern Univ., Evanston, IL, USA / Dept. Biomedical Engineering, Northwestern Univ., Evanston, IL, USA 

Rat whisker system is an excellent tactile sensing apparatus by which rats can obtain descriptions of shape, texture and location of objects even in the darkness. Thus, this modality is a good model of tactile sensory systems in general. Whisker follicles contain complex and elaborate neural mechanisms to encode mechanical input into neuronal activity. These neuronal elements in follicles show significant homology to mechanoreceptors for human tactile system (e.g. mechanoreceptors in the skin of finger tips). Understanding the mechanisms of the encoding of sensory information in the peripheral nervous systems is crucial to discuss about the sensory information processing in the central nervous system (e.g. cerebral cortex). While, in the visual system, the response properties of neural elements of the retina have been investigated well, the transduction process of tactile information in the periphery is currently poorly understood. To reveal the mechanisms of tactile encoding in the peripheral nervous system, we aimed at modeling the architecture and response properties of nervous endings in a whisker follicle. Of mechanoreceptors in the whisker follicle, Merkel endings, lanceolate endings and club-like endings at the level of the ring sinus are considered major receptors because these endings are so numerous. We found that the morphologically classified mechanoreceptors exhibited different response properties from each other. The response properties were correlated with the characteristics of the architecture of the nerve endings. We further reconstructed 3D ultra structure of Merkel endings with respect to the sustentacular structures. Finally, we suggest a model of whisker follicles, which explains the mechanics of transduction process of from mechanical inputs to neural activities.

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