Mammals use the glabrous (hairless) skin of their hands and feet to navigate and manipulate their environment. Cortical maps of the body surface across species contain disproportionately large numbers of neurons dedicated to glabrous skin sensation, potentially reflecting a higher density of mechanoreceptors that innervate these skin regions. Here, we find that disproportionate representation of glabrous skin emerges over postnatal development at the first synapse between peripheral mechanoreceptors and their central targets in the brainstem. Mechanoreceptor synapses undergo developmental refinement that depends on proximity of their terminals to glabrous skin, such that those innervating glabrous skin make synaptic connections that expand their central representation. In mice that do not sense gentle touch, mechanoreceptors innervating glabrous skin still make more powerful synapses in the brainstem. We propose that the skin region a mechanoreceptor innervates controls refinement of its central synapses over development to shape the representation of touch in the brain.
Lehnert, Brendan P. and Santiago, Celine and Huey, Erica L. and Emanuel, Alan J. and Renauld, Sophia and Africawala, Nusrat and Alkislar, Ilayda and Zheng, Yang and Bai, Ling and Koutsioumpa, Charalampia and Hong, Jennifer T. and Magee, Alexandra R. and Harvey, Christopher D. and Ginty, David D., Mechanoreceptor Synapses in the Brainstem Shape the Central Representation of Touch. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3787905 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3787905
This version of the paper has not been formally peer reviewed.
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