{"doi":"10.1101/2023.06.06.543886","title":"Cortical circuitry mediating inter-areal touch signal amplification","abstract":"Abstract Sensory cortical areas are often organized into topographic maps which represent the sensory epithelium 1,2 . Individual areas are richly interconnected 3 , in many cases via reciprocal projections that respect the topography of the underlying map 4,5 . Because topographically matched cortical patches process the same stimulus, their interaction is likely central to many neural computations 6-10 . Here, we ask how topographically matched subregions of primary and secondary vibrissal somatosensory cortices (vS1 and vS2) interact during whisker touch. In the mouse, whisker touch-responsive neurons are topographically organized in both vS1 and vS2. Both areas receive thalamic touch input and are topographically interconnected 4 . Volumetric calcium imaging in mice actively palpating an object with two whiskers revealed a sparse population of highly active, broadly tuned touch neurons responsive to both whiskers. These neurons were especially pronounced in superficial layer 2 in both areas. Despite their rarity, these neurons served as the main conduits of touch-evoked activity between vS1 and vS2 and exhibited elevated synchrony. Focal lesions of the whisker touch-responsive region in vS1 or vS2 degraded touch responses in the unlesioned area, with whisker-specific vS1 lesions degrading whisker-specific vS2 touch responses. Thus, a sparse and superficial population of broadly tuned touch neurons recurrently amplifies touch responses across vS1 and vS2.","journal":"bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory)","year":2023,"id":396603,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":2,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9526,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2023-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":921224,"name":"Andrew Sun-Yan","orcid":null,"position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":920665,"name":"Maya Laughton","orcid":"0009-0001-2047-4073","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":263128,"name":"Simon Peron","orcid":"0000-0001-8265-6940","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":818932,"name":"Lauren Ryan","orcid":"0000-0001-5188-2945","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":61,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T01:19:31.472087Z","pmid":"37333308","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}