Encoding active tactile sensing in the brain: data

Encoding active tactile sensing in the brain involves understanding how information about what we touch arrives in the brain and how the brain makes sense of this information. Data was collected from experiments on approximately 60 anaesthetised rat's brains using a fine microelectrode to measure electrical changes across the cell membranes when a stimulus is applied to the whiskers. Rat whiskers are very sensitive and are used by the rat to gather information about objects. As the whiskers are on the rat's face it is easy to move them in a precisely defined motion, and record, using Spike2 data acquisition, how the rat's brain is making sense of different types of motion. Monash University, Department of Physiology PhD students, Duwage Alwis and Heidi Gaulke assisted two researchers, Ramesh Rajan and Vladimir Dubaj in generating and analysing the data.

大脑主动触觉感知的编码机制，核心在于阐明两个关键问题：其一，我们触觉所获取的信息如何传导至大脑；其二，大脑如何对这些信息进行解析与处理。本数据集基于约60只麻醉大鼠的脑部实验构建：通过高精度微电极记录大鼠触须受到外界刺激时，细胞膜两侧产生的电活动变化。大鼠触须具备极高的感知敏感性，是其探索外界物体、获取环境信息的重要感官器官。由于触须位于大鼠面部区域，可对其施加精准定义的运动模式，并借助Spike2数据采集系统，记录大鼠大脑对不同类型触须运动的信息处理过程。本数据集由莫纳什大学（Monash University）生理学系的博士生杜瓦格·阿尔维斯（Duwage Alwis）与海蒂·高克（Heidi Gaulke）协助拉梅什·拉詹（Ramesh Rajan）、弗拉基米尔·杜巴伊（Vladimir Dubaj）两位研究者完成数据生成与分析工作。