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The Central Pattern Generator for Rhythmic Whisking

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Sensorimotor Integration in the Whisker System

Abstract

Whisking and sniffing are predominant aspects of exploratory behavior in rodents. We review evidence that these motor rhythms are coordinated by the respiratory patterning circuitry in the ventral medulla. A region in the intermediate reticular zone, dorsomedial to the preBötzinger inspiratory complex, provides rhythmic input to the facial motoneurons that drive protraction of the vibrissae. Neuronal output from this region is reset at each inspiration by direct input from the preBötzinger complex. High frequency breathing, or sniffing, has a one-to-one coordination with whisking while basal respiration is accompanied by intervening whisks that occur between breaths. We conjecture that the preBötzinger complex, which projects to neighboring premotor regions for the control of other orofacial muscles, functions as a master clock to coordinate orofacial behaviors with breathing.

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Acknowledgements

Our work was funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (grant MT-5877), the United States National Institutes of Health (grants NS058668, NS066664 and NS047101), the United States National Science Foundation (grant PHY-1451026), and the US-Israeli Binational Science Foundation (grant 2003222).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physics and Section on Neurobiology, University of California San Diego, 9500 Gilman Drive, 92093, La Jolla, CA, USA

    David Kleinfeld

  2. Department of Psychiatry and Neuroscience, 
Laval University, 2601 de la Canardière, G2B 2Y2, Quebec City, QC, Canada

    Martin Deschênes

  3. Graduate Program in Neuroscience, University of California San Diego, 9500 Gilman Dr., 92093, La Jolla, CA, USA

    Jeffrey D. Moore

Authors
  1. David Kleinfeld
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  2. Martin Deschênes
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  3. Jeffrey D. Moore
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to David Kleinfeld .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Systems Neuroscience, Ruhr University Bochum, Bochum, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany

    Patrik Krieger

  2. Institute of Neuroscience, Technische Universitaet Muenchen, Munich, Germany

    Alexander Groh

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Kleinfeld, D., Deschênes, M., Moore, J. (2015). The Central Pattern Generator for Rhythmic Whisking. In: Krieger, P., Groh, A. (eds) Sensorimotor Integration in the Whisker System. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-2975-7_7

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