Figure 4.

Barrel cortex neurons adapt less after repetitive stimulation of the PW than after stimulation of the AW. A, For each cell, the two whiskers that evoked the largest responses were selected. The latency of the smaller of the two responses (suspected AW) was plotted against the latency of the larger response (suspected PW). Layer 4 cells show shorter latency for larger response, whereas for layer 2/3 cells the correlation is less clear-cut. B–D, Comparison of the extent of adaptation (inversely related to RI) in terms of three different criteria for selection of the PW versus the AW: amplitude (B), latency (C), and rise time (D). The RI (see Materials and Methods) for the suspected AW is plotted in the abscissa and for the suspected PW in the ordinate. Cells of layer 4 are marked by open circles. Several cells (3 in B, 10 in C, and 7 in D) were removed from the plots when criteria values for the two whiskers were barely indistinguishable (i.e., differing by <10%).