Spatial frequency tuning in cutaneous type I receptors

Abstract

The encoder characteristics of cat, hairy skin, slowly adapting Type I (T1) receptors were studied by activating them with swept period grating stimuli drawn over the skin's surface. It was hypothesized that the puncate organization of these receptors and the possibility of action potentials from one dome blocking the responses from other domes would result in a receptor behaving as a matched filter to specific periods of a grating stimulus. Laboratory experiment and preliminary numerical modeling results of receptor responses that support the matched-filter hypothesis are presented.<>