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Abstract

The rodent vibrissal system offers an ideal model for studying sensory-motor pathways of the central nervous system. There has been much consideration given to bring insight to the organization of the whisker sensory pathways in the rodent brain. However, the organization of the vibrissa motor output pathway and the integration of sensory inputs involved in whisker movement are not completely understood. The goal of our research is to use the rodent whisker system to understand the functional architecture of the cortical and sub-cortical areas involved with whisker motor output generation. Combining trans-synaptic virus injections with custom-designed brain-wide imaging and analysis we generate an unbiased map of all vibrissal motor pathways. Wild-type rabies virus is deposited into the intrinsic and extrinsic musculature of the mystacial pad, targeting a single whisker. The virus is then transported in a time dependent manner throughout the central nervous system via vibrissa motor neurons, located in the lateral area of the facial nucleus that directly innervate the whisker muscles. This technique and the unique features of the virus allow us to provide first-time understanding of the structural basis for sensory-motor whisker control.