Simple and complex motion waveforms applied to the Principal Whisker of cortical neurons under study.

<p>Simple trapezoidal stimuli (<b>A</b>) with variable onset ramp velocity (<i>a</i>) but fixed amplitude of 3.6 mm, hold duration of 20 ms and offset duration of 40 ms were used. Shown here is the trapezoid with maximum onset ramp velocity of 400 mm/s. (<b>B</b>) Object contact whisker motion pattern, recorded by <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0063454#pone.0063454-Hartmann1" target="_blank">[41]</a> from an awake behaving rat, moving a whisker to contact an object and brush past it. The left panel shows the waveforms as presented in Fig. 8A of that report <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0063454#pone.0063454-Hartmann1" target="_blank">[41]</a>, and the right hand panel shows the specific waveform we applied to the PW. (<b>C</b>) Rough surface discriminatory whisker pattern recorded by Ritt <i>et al </i><a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0063454#pone.0063454-Ritt1" target="_blank">[42]</a> as the whiskers were moved across a rough surface by an awake behaving rat that had been trained to discriminate between rough and smooth surfaces. The left panel shows the waveforms as presented in <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0063454#pone-0063454-g003" target="_blank">Figure 3B</a> of that report <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0063454#pone.0063454-Ritt1" target="_blank">[42]</a> and the right hand panel shows the specific waveform we applied to the PW. The red line shows the face-centred angle of motion 5 mm from the face, and the blue line is the simultaneous vibrissae motion through a line scan placed 1 mm from the face surface.