Whisker-based spatial cognition in mice

Abstract

Object localization has been well characterized in the visual and auditory systems, yet how tactile inputs are transformed into a percept of object location in external space remains unclear. Here, we developed a whisker-based categorization task in head-restrained mice that requires judgments of object position in the horizontal plane. Mice categorized object positions with minimal bias relative to the task category boundary and achieved submillimeter spatial acuity by sampling the object with multiple whiskers, a process that depended on the whisker-related primary somatosensory cortex. Strikingly, mice extrapolated learned spatial categories to novel positions and exhibited robust spatial judgments across whiskers, objects, and hemispaces. Together, these findings suggest that through their whiskers, mice construct a percept of object location that is not tied to specific sensors and stimulus features, supporting robust tactile localization in external space.

Keywords: active sensing; mouse behavior; mouse whisker; object localization; sensory space perception; somatosensory cortex.