Proceedings of the Barrels II Workshop: sensorimotor loops

Rodents use their whiskers to explore their environment and to make very fine discriminations in textures and sizes of objects. Exploratory "whisking" movements consist of large amplitude, rhythmic whisker protractions that occur at characteristic frequencies of 5-10 Hz. Rodents likely whisk to move their receptor surface over the object they are touching. A fundamental understanding of this important motor behavior and the sensorimotor loops that control it were the focus of the final session of the Barrels Workshop. This session began with talks from David Kleinfeld (University of California San Diego), Miguel Nicolelis (Duke University), and Jonathan Rubin (University of Pittsburgh). These talks were followed by short presentations from Steven Leiser (Drexel University), Marcin Szwed (Weitzman Institute), Ford Ebner (Vanderbilt University), Charles Pluto (Medical College of Ohio), and Elisabeth Foeller (Washington University).