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. 2019 Oct 25;151(12):1343–1346. doi: 10.1085/jgp.201912477

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© 2019 Perks and Pierce

This article is distributed under the terms of an Attribution–Noncommercial–Share Alike–No Mirror Sites license for the first six months after the publication date (see http://www.rupress.org/terms/). After six months it is available under a Creative Commons License (Attribution–Noncommercial–Share Alike 4.0 International license, as described at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/).

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Figure 1. — The quantal code of touch. Touch receptor neurons encode indentation depth via the discrete number of activated MEC-4 channels that contribute to the peak mechanoreceptive current. MEC-4 channels are distributed ∼2 µm apart along the length of the touch neuron’s dendrite (shown in beige). Shallow indentation (in blue) produces a limited strain field and opens a small number of channels within this field, resulting in a small phasic current. In comparison, deep indentation (in purple) widens the strain field and activates more channels, resulting in a larger current.