Representation of egomotion in rat's trident and E-row whisker cortices

The authors find that the portion of rat somatosensory cortex representing the trident whiskers—a set of whiskers specialized for ground contact during exploration—encodes information about speed and acceleration of the animal. Microstimulation of this area alters running speed, consistent with the idea that trident whiskers and their neural representation could serve as a tactile speedometer.