In neural networks, the conversion of postsynaptic potentials (PSPs) to action potentials (APs) is a critical step in communication. This intracellular transfer of information strongly influences how sensory cortices represent stimuli. Through whole-cell recordings and information-theoretic measures, our study reveals that somatic PSPs reliably convey the location of stimuli on a trial-by-trial basis, even four synapses away from the sensory periphery in the whisker system. Although this information is mostly lost during AP generation, it can be swiftly (<20 ms) recovered through complementary data in local cell populations, exhibiting cell-type-specific patterns. These findings highlight that as sensory information travels between neural locations, circuits reconstruct the stimulus with remarkable accuracy. Single neurons faithfully represent peripheral stimuli, but exclusively in their PSPs, ensuring lossless information processing for the sense of touch in the primary somatosensory cortex.
Information transfer and recovery for the sense of touch
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