Fig. 3: Receptive fields in SDH are shaped by somatotopy, modality, and relative dorso-ventral position.

a Schematic illustrating proximal-distal somatotopy. b Field of view in the superficial SDH showing maximum intensity responses after LT stimulation pseudo-colored to each of the indicated receptive fields (RF) in a: red, proximal; green, intermediate; blue, distal (scale bar, 50 µm). N = 4 animals. c, ΔF/F Ca²⁺ traces from circled cells in b, showing responses to stimulation at the three indicated RFs, serially stimulated from proximal to distal. Traces are arranged by their somatic medio-lateral location. d Schematic illustrating RF sizes for different mechanical stimuli: HT, green; LT, blue; and air puff, black. e Representative ΔF/F Ca²⁺ traces at 16 RFs for each stimulation type. f Mean ± SEM receptive field size of excitatory SDH neurons responsive to all 3 modalities was calculated by summing the total number of responses observed at each of the sites. There was a significant main effect of stimulation type (F (1.686, 227.6) = 49.3), P = < 0.0001 (1-way RM ANOVA). Post hoc testing was performed comparing all stimulation types. N = 136 cells; *Q = < 0.0001. g Schematic illustrating dorso-ventral differences in RF size, between lamina I (green) and lamina II (purple). h HT RF size plotted as a function of dorso-ventral depth. i Mean ± SEM RF size of neurons located within lamina I and lamina II. *P < 0.05 (two-tailed paired t test, P = 0.0220). N = 4 mice.