Information coding in early stages of the somatosensory system

This paper explores the information coding performed by the local circuit of the Cuneate Nucleus (CN). On the basis of physiological data, we have developed a realistic computational model and studied its output in response to different types of plausible cutaneous stimuli. Computer simulations show that (1) static stimuli are encoded in progressive spatio-temporal patterns made up of single-spike trains generated by each stimulated neuron, and (2) moving stimuli are encoded with a bursting discharge of those units responding to the leading edge of the stimulus. These results suggest that the role of CN could be to transform the stimulus representation in order to facilitate both discrimination and classification in later processing stages.

keywords: computational model, cuneate nucleus, information coding, somatosensory system