“…Although this preparation resembles in some respects anesthetized conditions where the whiskers are made to move artificially by electrical stimulation of the facial motor nerves (Brown and Waite, 1974; Castro-Alamancos and Bezdudnaya, 2015; Szwed et al, 2003), all of our data were collected in the awake, alert state. Since several studies have highlighted how brain state and the level of alertness can dramatically influence sensory processing and the firing of specific cortical subtypes (Adesnik et al, 2012; Castro-Alamancos, 2004a, b; Castro-Alamancos and Oldford, 2002; Greenberg et al, 2008; Lee et al, 2013; Niell and Stryker, 2010; Poulet and Petersen, 2008; Reimer et al, 2014; Vinck et al, 2015), we consider it essential that we performed all of our experiments in the awake state while mice ran and whisked of their own volition.…”