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.
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BibTeX
@article{mazo2026whiskerbased,
title = {{Whisker-based spatial cognition in mice}},
author = {Camille Mazo and Shubhi Pal and Quang Minh Do and Naoya Takahashi},
journal = {Current Biology},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.1016/j.cub.2026.02.064},
url = {https://hal.science/hal-05779227v1},
note = {CC BY},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - Whisker-based spatial cognition in mice
AU - Camille Mazo
AU - Shubhi Pal
AU - Quang Minh Do
AU - Naoya Takahashi
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/05
JO - Current Biology
DO - 10.1016/j.cub.2026.02.064
UR - https://hal.science/hal-05779227v1
AB - 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.
SN - 0960-9822
SN - 1879-0445
ER -