德国亥姆霍兹协会马克斯·德尔布里克分子医学中心J. F. A. Poulet等研究人员合作发现哺乳动物皮层中温度的细胞编码。相关论文于2023年2月8日在线发表在《自然》杂志上。
通过小鼠前爪系统的宽视场和双光子钙成像，研究人员发现了对降温和/或升温具有不同时空响应特性的皮层神经元。研究人员在初级体感觉皮层观察到冷的表现（而没有热），但在后岛叶皮层（pIC）中观察到冷和热的表现。在pIC中，热信息的表示是稳健和躯体特定区排列的，并且可逆操作对热感知有深远的影响。尽管位于同一个一维感觉轴上，但在高度调谐和广泛调谐的神经元中，冷和热的编码是不同的。总之，这些研究结果表明，pIC包含了皮肤温度的主要皮层表征，并可能有助于解释热系统是如何产生冷热感觉的。
研究人员表示，温度是一种独立于触觉的基本感觉方式，有专门的感受器通道和主要的传入神经元来感知冷和热。然而，与其他模式不同的是，皮层对温度的编码仍是未知的，很少有皮层神经元被报道对无疼痛的温度有反应，并且“热皮层”的存在是有争议的。
附：英文原文
Title: The cellular coding of temperature in the mammalian cortex
Author: Vestergaard, M., Carta, M., Gney, G., Poulet, J. F. A.
Issue&Volume: 2023-02-08
Abstract: Temperature is a fundamental sensory modality separate from touch, with dedicated receptor channels and primary afferent neurons for cool and warm1,2,3. Unlike for other modalities, however, the cortical encoding of temperature remains unknown, with very few cortical neurons reported that respond to non-painful temperature, and the presence of a ‘thermal cortex’ is debated4,5,6,7,8. Here, using widefield and two-photon calcium imaging in the mouse forepaw system, we identify cortical neurons that respond to cooling and/or warming with distinct spatial and temporal response properties. We observed a representation of cool, but not warm, in the primary somatosensory cortex, but cool and warm in the posterior insular cortex (pIC). The representation of thermal information in pIC is robust and somatotopically arranged, and reversible manipulations show a profound impact on thermal perception. Despite being positioned along the same one-dimensional sensory axis, the encoding of cool and that of warm are distinct, both in highly and broadly tuned neurons. Together, our results show that pIC contains the primary cortical representation of skin temperature and may help explain how the thermal system generates sensations of cool and warm.
DOI: 10.1038/s41586-023-05705-5
Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-05705-5
Nature：《自然》，创刊于1869年。隶属于施普林格·自然出版集团，最新IF：69.504
官方网址：http://www.nature.com/
投稿链接：http://www.nature.com/authors/submit_manuscript.html
本期文章：《自然》：Online/在线发表
