RT Journal Article SR Electronic T1 Layer-specific integration of locomotion and concurrent wall touching in mouse barrel cortex JF bioRxiv FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory SP 265165 DO 10.1101/265165 A1 Asli Ayaz A1 Andreas Stäuble A1 Aman B Saleem A1 Fritjof Helmchen YR 2018 UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2018/02/13/265165.abstract AB During navigation rodents continually sample the environment with their whiskers. How locomotion modulates neuronal activity in somatosensory cortex and how self-motion is integrated with whisker touch remains unclear. Here, we used calcium imaging in mice running in a tactile virtual reality to investigate modulation of neurons in layer 2/3 (L2/3) and L5 of barrel cortex. About a third of neurons in both layers increased activity during running and concomitant whisking, in the absence of touch. Fewer neurons were modulated by whisking alone (<10%). Whereas L5 neurons responded transiently to wall-touching during running, L2/3 neurons showed sustained activity after touch onset. Consistently, neurons encoding running-with-touch were more abundant in L2/3 compared to L5. Few neurons across layers were also sensitive to abrupt perturbations of tactile flow. We propose that L5 neurons mainly report changes in touch conditions whereas L2/3 neurons continually monitor ongoing tactile stimuli during running.