Thalamic relay of afferent responses to 1- to 12-Hz whisker stimulation in the rat

Somatosensory cortical neurons in the rat can be entrained to frequencies of pulsatile whisker stimulation up to at least 12 Hz. A recent study proposed that such entrainment depends on oscillatory corticothalamic feedback. According to this model, thalamic relay neurons function as comparators of ascending and descending signals and should vary their response magnitudes and latencies as a function of peripheral stimulation frequency. Here we report, however, that the responses of thalamic relay neurons to 1- to 12-Hz pulsatile whisker deflections are constant in magnitude and latency over these frequencies. In addition, their cycle-by-cycle responses are as invariant as those of primary afferent neurons. These results support the view that thalamic relay neurons are driven primarily by ascending afferent signals and thereby entrain cortical neurons to peripheral stimulation by means of a direct feed-forward mechanism.