Neural Circuits of Orofacial Sensory and Motor Behaviors

Rodents use their whiskers (specialized facial hairs) as touch sensors for environmental and social explorations. These touch sensors are particularly important for their activities in the dark.

All sensory organs on the face, including the whiskers, are innervated by sensory neurons located inside the trigeminal ganglion located just beneath the skull. These sensory neurons detect physical stimuli experienced by the face and transmit the information to the brain by forming multiple connections with second order neurons in the brainstem. Subsequently, information is relayed from brainstem to the thalamus and other areas, and from thalamus to the somatosensory cortex.

    Whiskers are motile sensors. Rodents use the “back-and-forth” sweeping movements, called whisking, to palpate objects, and thus the process is also referred to as “active sensing”. Movements of the whiskers are controlled by motoneurons located in the facial nucleus, as well as by a complex network of cortical and subcortical neurons that directly or indirectly connected to these motoneurons.

   Information gained from active whisking is processed and used to guide many behaviors as rodents move through their environments to search for food and to interact with each other. Information derived from different facial sensory organs guides different orofacial behaviors such as mastication (chewing), licking and swallowing.

   In our lab, we aim to dynamically map and functionally manipulate the neural circuits underlying the processes of "sensations to perceptions to actions" in various behaviors. We have been and are continuing to develop genetically engineered mice, together with various viral technologies (such as deficient rabies virus, retrograde lentiviruses, and AAV), to perform “connectivity mapping” of sensorimotor circuits, and to carry out optogenetic/chemicogenetic dissections of circuit functions.

Email
fan.wang@duke.edu

308 Nanaline Duke Bldg., Box 3709
Duke University Medical Center
Durham, NC 27710

Telephone: 919-684-3682

Wang Lab Website