Flow of excitation within rat barrel cortex on striking a single vibrissa.

1. Extracellular spike recordings were made from single cells in various layers of barrel cortex in adult rats anesthetized with urethan. Response magnitude and latency differences to brief 1.14 degrees deflections of mystacial vibrissae of center (principal) and surround receptive-field vibrissae were measured. Latency differences for pairs of cells in the same penetration to stimulation of the principal vibrissa were also collected. In separate experiments the domains of layer IV cells were mapped for their influence by a single vibrissa and their latencies to this vibrissa were recorded. In all experiments precise locations of layer IV cells in each penetration were identified using dye-lesioning and cytochrome oxidase staining of tangential sections. 2. The results suggest that principal vibrissa data are relayed radially in a column of neurons before parallel relay to adjacent columns. To the principal vibrissa, layers IV and Vb neurons discharged earliest, with layers II and III on average 2 and 3 ms later, respectively. Serial relay from layers IV to III to II was suggested to be the most common event. Although layer Va cells fired next, a single-column organization is not suggested for them because differences in latency or response magnitude to their principal and immediate surround vibrissae were not significant. Layer II, III and IV cells showed no statistical difference in latency to the nearest surround vibrissa but fired significantly later than to their principal input. 3. Because, from our previous studies, surround receptive fields of barrel cells in rat S1 cortex appear to be constructed intracortically, these data suggest a parallel column-column relay for their construction. Horizontal relay between barrels occurred first within the septae between barrels. Mean intracortical transmission velocities were calculated at approximately 0.05 m/s for column-column information transfer.