[CTN] Invite: Tuesday Jan 27 1-2:30pm Andrew Prusznski "Edge orientation processing in first-order tactile neurons"

[Michael Barnett-Cowan]

*Department chairs and research institute representatives, please circulate
this to your faculty and students.*

Next week (Jan 27 1-2:30pm, *LHS 1621: NEW ROOM*) the Kinesiology
Neuroscience Seminar Series welcomes you to attend a guest lecture
presented by  Andrew <https://sites.google.com/site/andpru/> Prusznski
<https://sites.google.com/site/andpru/>(Western, Physiology and
Pharmacology, Psychology):

Title: Edge orientation processing in first-order tactile neurons (paper
attached)

 Abstract:
A fundamental feature of first-order neurons in the tactile system is that
their distal axon branches in the skin and forms many transduction sites,
yielding complex receptive fields with many highly sensitive zones. The
functional consequences of this spatial arrangement are unknown. In this
talk, I will describe our recent findings, based on single neuron
recordings in humans, that this complex spatial arrangement constitutes a
peripheral neural mechanism that allows individual neurons to signal
geometric features of touched objects. I will first show that two types of
first-order tactile neurons that densely innervate the glabrous skin of the
human fingertips (fast-adapting type 1 and slow-adapting type 1) signal
edge orientation via both the intensity and the temporal structure of their
responses. I will then describe computational work showing that a neuron's
sensitivity to edge orientation can be readily predicted from the spatial
layout of its highly sensitive zones. Taken together, these findings reveal
that peripheral touch neurons, like peripheral visual neurons, perform
feature extraction computations typically attributed to neurons in the
central nervous system. Rather than merely conveying a simple
representation of the stimulus to the central nervous system for further
processing, we submit that peripheral neurons in both modalities may have
evolved to extract and signal specific geometric features.

Andrew's work has garnered lots of attention and we are very pleased to
have him visit and share his insights with us. We have booked a larger room
(LHS 1621) and hope many of our colleagues across campus can attend.

As Andrew is a recent hire at Western University, I have also asked him to
reflect on his training and job search experiences:* an excellent
professional development opportunity and reason for many graduate students
and postdocs to attend.*

If anyone would like to arrange to meet with Andrew outside of his talk
please contact him at andrew.pruszynski at uwo.ca

Hope to see many of you there!

Michael

-- 
Michael Barnett-Cowan, PhD
Assistant Professor of Neuroscience
Department of Kinesiology
University of Waterloo
200 University Avenue West
Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, N2L 3G1
p: +1.519.888.4567 x39177
f: +1.519.746.6776
e: mbc at uwaterloo.ca
w: https://sites.google.com/site/mbarnettcowan
t: https://twitter.com/#!/multisensebrain
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