Two whiskers were spared, as opposed to trimming off

all whiskers bilaterally, to ensure that animals continued to explore the environment via the whisker system. Deprived rats continued to whisk over large arcs and actively palpate objects and surfaces with their spared whiskers. Deprived rats were housed in the same cages as control littermates, which were handled similarly. Control rats were sham trimmed by gently brushing the whiskers with scissors. Cages were enriched with cardboard boxes or tubes to encourage whisker use. Rats were initially anesthetized with isoflurane and then transferred to urethane (1.6 g/kg intraperitoneally; 10% supplements as needed). Body temperature was maintained at 37°C by a heating blanket. The selleck kinase inhibitor parietal and occipital bones were exposed, and a metal post for positioning the head was attached to the skull using dental acrylic. The skull overlying the ventral posterior medial thalamic nucleus of the left hemisphere was thinned with a dental drill until transparent, and a craniotomy was opened (∼2 mm2, centered 3.0 mm posterior to bregma and 3.5 mm lateral of the midline). Thalamus was mapped extracellularly by conventional means. Glass pipettes with tips of ∼5 μm inside diameter (ID) were filled with artificial cerebrospinal fluid (aCSF; 135 mM NaCl, 5.4 mM KCl, 1.8 mM CaCl2, 1.0 mM MgCl2, and 5.0 mM HEPES [pH 7.2]) and inserted vertically to a microdrive depth

of 4,700–5,700 μm. Signals were amplified, band-pass filtered at 0.3–9 kHz, and played over an audio monitor. Whiskers were deflected manually using hand-held probes to determine the principal whisker corresponding buy INCB018424 to any given location. Cells were filled by whole-cell recording. Patch pipettes were pulled from 2 mm unfilamented borosilicate glass. Tip ID was ∼0.5 μm.

Pipettes were tip filled with 135 mM K-gluconate, 10 mM HEPES, 10 mM phosphocreatine-Na2, 4 mM KCl, 4 mM ATP-Mg, 0.3 mM GTP, and 1% biocytin (pH 7.2). Cells were searched for in voltage-clamp mode using pulses. Whole-cell recordings were made in bridge mode for 15–40 min. We subsequently allowed 12–19 hr to elapse to permit adequate tracer next diffusion. To ensure accurate axonal reconstruction, we usually filled only one neuron per rat. Occasionally, additional neurons were filled but, in these cases, they would be targeted 2–3 barreloids away from previous penetrations. The rat was deeply anesthetized and perfused transcardially with cold 0.1 M sodium phosphate buffer followed by 4% paraformaldehyde (in 0.1 M buffer). Barrel cortex was cut tangentially in 50 μm sections on a freezing microtome, and thalamus was cut coronally in 100 μm sections. Sections were stained for cytochrome oxidase (CO) and subsequently biocytin. Twenty-five cells out of a total of 37 filled ones were recovered. Approximately 40 sections, spanning from the pia to the white matter, were reconstructed per neuron.