The barrel area is a unique specialization of the cerebral cortex, shared by many species of rodents and some marsupials, in which the somatotopic map of the body surface receives direct morphological expression. Here, the homogeneous sheet of layer IV granule cells seen in most mammals is fractured into large archipelagos, each representing one of the larger subdivisions of the contra lateral half-body. Within these larger domains are smaller aggregates of granule cells that contain the concentrated terminations of thalamocortical fibers bear ing messages emanating from constellations of receptors located in finer subdi visions of a body part. These smaller aggregates are particularly well-defined in the representation of the face, where they form a one-to-one representation of the sinus hairs or vibrissae and where they have been given the name barrels. The first inklings of the unique structure of the parietal cortex of rodents came in the study of Droogleever-Fortuyn (1914), who remarked on the pres ence in it of clouds of granule cells 0. 5-1 mm in diameter, which he thought were in some way associated with concentrations of nerve fibers. Little attention, however, was paid to his observations. Lorente de N 6 (1922) later observed dense focal concentrations of afferent fiber ramifications in Golgi preparations of the mouse cortex, calling them glomeruli, and these can now be seen as the structures that form the hearts of the barrels and around which the granule cells concentrate."

nerve; subsequently, however, they concluded that the recordings had been from aberrant cells of the cochlear nucleus lying central to the glial margin of the VIII nerve (GALAMBOS and DAVIS, 1948). The first successful recordmgs from fibres of the cochlear nerve were made by TASAKI (1954) in the guinea pig. These classical but necessarily limited results were greatly extended by ROSE, GALAMBOS, and HUGHES (1959) in the cat cochlear nucleus and by KATSUKI and co-workers (KATSUKI et at. , 1958, 1961, 1962) in the cat and monkey cochlear nerve. Perhaps the most significant developments have been the introduction of techniques for precise control of the acoustic stimulus and the quantitative analysis of neuronal response patterns, notably by the laboratories of KIANG (e. g. GERSTEIN and KIANG, 1960; KIANG et at. , 1962b, 1965a, 1967) and ROSE (e. g. ROSE et at. , 1967; HIND et at. , 1967). These developments have made possible a large number of quanti tative investigations of the behaviour of representative numbers of neurons at these levels of the peripheral auditory system under a wide variety of stimulus conditions. Most of the findings discussed herein have been obtained on anaesthetized cats. Where comparative data are available, substantially similar results have been obtained in other mammalian species (e. g. guinea pig, monkey, rat). Certain significant differences have been noted in lizards, frogs and fish as would be expect ed from the different morphologies of their organs of hearing (e. g.

The barrel area is a unique specialization of the cerebral cortex, shared by many species of rodents and some marsupials, in which the somatotopic map of the body surface receives direct morphological expression. Here, the homogeneous sheet of layer IV granule cells seen in most mammals is fractured into large archipelagos, each representing one of the larger subdivisions of the contra lateral half-body. Within these larger domains are smaller aggregates of granule cells that contain the concentrated terminations of thalamocortical fibers bear ing messages emanating from constellations of receptors located in finer subdi visions of a body part. These smaller aggregates are particularly well-defined in the representation of the face, where they form a one-to-one representation of the sinus hairs or vibrissae and where they have been given the name barrels. The first inklings of the unique structure of the parietal cortex of rodents came in the study of Droogleever-Fortuyn (1914), who remarked on the pres ence in it of clouds of granule cells 0. 5-1 mm in diameter, which he thought were in some way associated with concentrations of nerve fibers. Little attention, however, was paid to his observations. Lorente de N 6 (1922) later observed dense focal concentrations of afferent fiber ramifications in Golgi preparations of the mouse cortex, calling them glomeruli, and these can now be seen as the structures that form the hearts of the barrels and around which the granule cells concentrate.