Spatio-temporal information coding in the cuneate nucleus

The dorsal column nuclei, cuneatus and gracilis, receive somesthetic information impinging on projection cells and local inhibitory interneurons. The presence of these interneurons allows spatio-temporal progressive coding of information that can be modeled [E. Sánchez, J. Aguilar, C. Rivadulla, A. Canedo, The role of Glycinergic Interneurons in the Dorsal Column Nuclei, Neurocomputing 58–60 (2004) 1049–1055 [14]] using their known synaptic connections with projection cells [J. Aguilar, C. Rivadulla, C. Soto, A. Canedo, New corticocuneate cellular mechanisms underlying the modulation of cutaneous ascending transmission in anesthetized cats, J. Neurophysiol. 89 (2003) 3328–3339 [1], J. Aguilar, C. Soto, C. Rivadulla, A. Canedo, The lemniscal-cuneate recurrent excitation is suppressed by strychnine and enhancedd by GABAA antagonists in the anesthetized cat, Eur. J. Neurosci. 16 (2002) 1697–1704 [2], J. Mariño, L. Martinez, A. Canedo, Sensorimotor integration at the dorsal column nuclei, NIPS 14 (1999) 231–237 [9]. Here we explore the dependency of the processing time required to complete the progressive coding with regard to cutaneous stimuli varying in size and regularity of the intensity profile.