Active vibrissal sensing in rodents and marsupials

• Published in: Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B. Biological sciences Vol. 366; no. 1581; pp. 3037 - 3048
• Main Authors: Mitchinson, Ben, Grant, Robyn A., Arkley, Kendra, Rankov, Vladan, Perkon, Igor, Prescott, Tony J.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England The Royal Society 12.11.2011
• Subjects: Active Sensing; Animals; Biological Clocks - physiology; Contrapuntal motion; Evolution; Fourier Analysis; Kinematics; Mammals; Marsupials; Mice - physiology; Monodelphis - physiology; Opossums; Rats; Rats - physiology; Rodents; Sense of touch; Touch; Touch - physiology; Vibrissae; Vibrissae - physiology; Whisking

In rats, the long facial whiskers (mystacial macrovibrissae) are repetitively and rapidly swept back and forth during exploration in a behaviour known as 'whisking'. In this paper, we summarize previous evidence from rats, and present new data for rat, mouse and the marsupial grey short-ta...