Coding processes involved in the cortical representation of complex tactile stimuli

To understand how information is coded in the primary somatosensory cortex (S1) we need to decipher the relationship between neural activity and tactile stimuli. Such a relationship can be formally measured by mutual information. The present study was designed to determine how S1 neuronal populations code for the multidimensional kinetic features (i.e. random, time-varying patterns of force) of complex tactile stimuli, applied at different locations of the rat forepaw. More precisely, the stimulus localization and feature extraction were analyzed as two independent processes, using both rate coding and temporal coding strategies. To model the process of stimulus kinetic feature extraction, multidimensional stimuli were projected onto lower dimensional subspace and then clustered according to their similarity. Different combinations of stimuli clustering were applied to differentiate each stimulus identification process. Information analyses show that both processes are synergistic, this synergy is enhanced within the temporal coding framework. The stimulus localization process is faster than the stimulus feature extraction process. The latter provides more information quantity with rate coding strategy, whereas the localization process maximizes the mutual information within the temporal coding framework. Therefore, combining mutual information analysis with robust clustering of complex stimuli provides a framework to study neural coding mechanisms related to complex stimuli discrimination.