Matched Filtering in Active Whisker Touch

Grant, Robyn A.; Arkley, Kendra

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-25492-0_3

Cited by 17 publications

(31 citation statements)

References 82 publications

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“…Many small mammals are termed whisker specialists and move their whiskers backward and forward in a symmetric and cyclic movement called whisking (Vincent, ; Wineski, ; Prescott et al, ). Whisking is thought to guide behaviors, such as locomotion and foraging, in animals that survive in dark, complex habitats (Grant and Arkley, ; Grant et al, 2018). It is a major innovation in tactile specialists, enabling rapid sampling of their environments during spatial exploration (Knutsen, ), which boosts the quality and quantity of sensory information.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Good Vibrations: The Evolution of Whisking in Small Mammals

Muchlinski

Wible

Corfe

et al. 2018

The Anatomical Record

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While most mammals have whiskers, some tactile specialistsmainly small, nocturnal, and arboreal species-can actively move their whiskers in a symmetrical, cyclic movement called whisking. Whisking enables mammals to rapidly, tactually scan their environment to efficiently guide locomotion and foraging in complex habitats. The muscle architecture that enables whisking is preserved from marsupials to primates, prompting researchers to suggest that a common ancestor might have had moveable whiskers. Studying the evolution of whisker touch sensing is difficult, and we suggest that measuring an aspect of skull morphology that correlates with whisking would enable comparisons between extinct and extant mammals. We find that whisking mammals have larger infraorbital foramen (IOF) areas, which indicates larger infraorbital nerves and an increase in sensory acuity. While this relationship is quite variable and IOF area cannot be used to solely predict the presence of whisking, whisking mammals all have large IOF areas. Generally, this pattern holds true regardless of an animal's substrate preferences or activity patterns. Data from fossil mammals and ancestral character state reconstruction and tracing techniques for extant mammals suggest that whisking is not the ancestral state for therian mammals. Instead, whisking appears to have evolved independently as many as seven times across the clades Marsupialia, Afrosoricida, Eulipotyphla, and Rodentia, with Xenarthra the only placental superordinal clade lacking whisking species. However, the term whisking only captures symmetrical and rhythmic movements of the whiskers, rather than all possible whisker movements, and early mammals may still have had moveable whiskers. Anat Rec, 303:89-99, 2020.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…It is a major innovation in tactile specialists, enabling rapid sampling of their environments during spatial exploration (Knutsen, ), which boosts the quality and quantity of sensory information. Indeed, whisking can occur at speeds of 25 Hz and is one of the fastest movements that mammals can make (Grant and Arkley, ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Good Vibrations: The Evolution of Whisking in Small Mammals

Muchlinski

Wible

Corfe

et al. 2018

The Anatomical Record

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Laboratory rats and mice use their whiskers as their primary sense for exploring their surroundings and employ them in navigation, object exploration and social interactions. 23,24 Whiskers are regularly studied as a model system for investigating fundamental principles of sensory processing. [25][26][27] During exploration, the whiskers move forwards and backwards (termed protractions and retractions) in a motion called whisking, which can occur at rates of up to 25 Hz in mice.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Whisker exploration behaviours in the 5xFAD mouse are affected by sex and retinal degeneration

Grant

Wong

Fertan

et al. 2018

Genes Brain and Behavior

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Active whisking in mice and rats is one of the fastest behaviours known in mammals and is used to guide complex behaviours such as exploration and navigation. During object contact, whisker movements are actively controlled and undergo robust changes in timing, speed and position. This study quantifies whisker movements in 6‐ to 7‐month old male and female 5xFAD mice, and their C57/SJL F1 wild‐type (WT) controls. As well as genotype, we examined sex differences and the effects of retinal degeneration (rd). Mice were filmed using a high‐speed video camera at 500 frames per second (fps), under infrared light while behaving freely in three tasks: object exploration, sequential object exploration and tunnel running. Measures of whisker position, amplitude, speed and asymmetry were extracted and analysed for each task. The 5xFAD mice had significantly altered whisker angular positions, amplitude and asymmetry during object contacts and female 5xFAD mice with rd had lower mean angular positions during object contact. There were no significant effects of genotype on sequential object exploration or on tunnel running but differences due to sex and rd were found in both tasks, with female mice making larger and faster whisker movements overall, and mice with rd making larger and faster whisker movements during object contact. There were sex differences in whisker movements during sequential object exploration and females with rd had higher whisker retraction speeds in tunnel running. These data show that measuring whisker movements can quantify genotype and sex differences and the effects of rd during exploratory behaviour in these mice.

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“…The whiskers of rats and mice move in a cyclic motion called whisking, which is amongst the fastest movements that mammals can make, at a frequency of up to 25 Hz in mice (Mitchinson et al 2011;Grant and Arkley 2015). The kinematics of whisker movements can be related to the facial musculature of animals.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Whisker touch guides canopy exploration in a nocturnal, arboreal rodent, the Hazel dormouse (Muscardinus avellanarius)

et al. 2017

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AcknowledgementsThe authors would like to thank Hazel Ryan for her continued help and support, especially in handling the dormice; also to Hazel Ryan and Angus Carpenter for their comments on the manuscript. We are extremely thankful to the Wildwood Trust for the use of their facilities and animals. The authors are also grateful to Ben Mitchinson for designing the climbing arenas and developing the portable set-up, and to Holly Langridge and Fraser Combe for data collection support. Thanks to Brendan O'Connor for finding and translating some of the literature. Video analysis was performed using the BIOTACT Whisker Tracking Tool which was created under the auspices of the FET Proactive project FP7 BIOTACT project (ICT 215910), which also partly funded the study, alongside a small project grant from the British Ecological Society (BES). A big thanks goes to the CEB Research Group at MMU for listening to results summaries and advising about the project direction. Animal careAll animals were part of a rescue and rehabilitation program, or from a breeding pool at the Wildwood Trust in Kent (UK) and approved by local ethics committees at each of the academic institutions and at the Wildwood Trust.2 Abstract Dormouse numbers are declining in the UK due to habitat loss and fragmentation. We know that dormice are nocturnal, arboreal, and avoid crossing open spaces between habitats, yet how they navigate around their canopy is unknown. As other rodents use whisker touch sensing to navigate and explore their environment, this study investigates whether Hazel dormice (Muscardinus avellanarius) employ their whiskers to cross between habitats. We analysed high-speed video footage of dormice exploring freely in flat and climbing arenas in near darkness and using infrared light illumination. We confirm that, like rats and mice, dormice move their whiskers back and forth continuously (~10 Hz) in a motion called whisking and recruit them to explore small gaps (<10 cm) by increasing the amplitude and frequency of whisking and also the asymmetry of movement between the left and right whisker fields. When gaps between platforms are larger than 10-15 cm dormice spend more time travelling on the floor. These findings suggest that dormice can actively and purposively move their whiskers to gather relevant information from their canopy at night. As this species is vulnerable to threats on the ground, we also provide evidence that joining habitat patches between dormouse populations is important for promoting natural behaviours and movement between patches. AbbreviationsRC -rostrocaudal DC -dorsoventral BWTT -BIOTACT Whisker Tracking Tool

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Matched Filtering in Active Whisker Touch

Cited by 17 publications

References 82 publications

Good Vibrations: The Evolution of Whisking in Small Mammals

Good Vibrations: The Evolution of Whisking in Small Mammals

Whisker exploration behaviours in the 5xFAD mouse are affected by sex and retinal degeneration

Whisker touch guides canopy exploration in a nocturnal, arboreal rodent, the Hazel dormouse (Muscardinus avellanarius)

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