Welcome back for the final post in this series about the neuroethology of whiskers! The goal of this post is to propose some research questions based on the information gathered in these last five weeks. As I was reading, a…
Author: sara.sheffer16
More Whiskers Underwater
Welcome back! This week, we dive into the underwater world as perceived by vibrissae yet again, but this time we will be discussing pinnipeds: seals, sea lions, and walruses. California sea lions are able to discriminate differences in sizes to…
Interview With a Manatee Researcher!
This week, we will be talking about manatee vibrissae and how different they are from some of the other species we have reported on so far. Much of the information here comes directly from a researcher who studies animal behavior…
Rodent Vibrissae
Hello, fellow neuroethologists! This week, I will be discussing the whisker sensorimotor system in rodents, which has been studied quite well. Rodents collect the majority of the information they perceive from the environment through their whiskers by determining where and…
Rabbit Vibrissae
Welcome back! This week’s blog post will focus on vibrissae in rabbits. The brains of rabbits contain two complete maps of the entire body surface, both of which are in the somatosensory cortex of the parietal cortex (Gould 1986). The…
Whiskers in Cats: An Introduction
Whiskers, or facial vibrissae, function primarily as a replacement or supplement to short-distance vision by detecting forces and vibrations around them (Williams and Kramer 2010). Each whisker acts as a transducer, converting mechanical information about the environment into an electrical…