Interdome interactions in cutaneous Type I receptors

The encoder characteristics of cat, hairy skin, slowly adapting Type I receptors were studied by activating them with ´swept period´ grating stimuli. A typical stimulus featured a minimum scan period of 0.3 mm, a maximum scan period of 2.0 mm, and a total of 40 grates. Using these stimuli, single domes could easily encode the temporal frequency (1/period*scan velocity) of a grate, regardless of the scan velocity or direction. Receptors with multiple domes could not encode the temporal frequency of a swept-period stimulus unless the instantaneous grate period matched a receptor´s intrinsic ability to encode the stimulus. When this criterion was met, the temporal frequency of the stimulus was encoded in the bursting rate of the receptor´s action potential event stream.