Lc100

All whiskers were trimmed except 2–4 whiskers from rows A-C and arcs 1–4. A computer-automated, pressure-controlled air puff (1 s duration) was used to deliver 10 different puff intensities, each repeated 20 times in pseudorandom order at 7 s intervals. As shown in Fig 1 and previously described [35 (link)], two-dimensional (rostrocaudal and mediolateral) multi-whisker motion was measured with millisecond, micron precision using two line cameras (LC100, Thorlabs Inc, NJ, USA). Response curves were based on the speed of the whisker which evoked the largest MUA neural response, which we call the dominant whisker.

On-field experiments were realized thanks to carry-on detection equipment. It consists in two blue LEDs (Thorlabs – M490L3–490 nm) combined with a first lense (Thorlabs ACL25416U-A), two filters (Thorlabs FES0500 – Thorlabs M497-16) and a second lense (Thorlabs LA1422-A) to light the paper. The signal emitted by the biological reaction on paper is collected by a linear camera (Thorlabs LC-100) through a first lense (Thorlabs ACL3026-A), a FITC dichroic filter (Thorlabs MD499), a filter (Thorlabs FELH0500) and a second lense (Thorlabs ACL25416U-A). The paper device is positioned on a chip holder heated by a PTC heater (DBK HP05), controlled by a platine thermic element (RS Components PT 1000ohms) and a temperature controller (Carel IR33). A home-made Microsoft Office 2007 macro program enables to extract data from the linear camera recording software (Splicco), to detect the position of the maximum fluorescence intensity for each paper rectangular area and to monitor the mean intensity around each maximum over time.