Texture Identification by Bounded Integration of Sensory Cortical Signals (Current Biology)

When a rat palpates a surface to identify texture, vibrissal kinematic evidence is integrated by the brain one touch at a time. In this study, Zuo and Diamond find that vibrissal somatosensory cortex (vS1 and vS2) acts as a touch-by-touch distributor of evidence to a downstream integrator, where accumulation to a boundary triggers the decision.