Whisker-based spatial cognition in mice

Camille Mazo, Shubhi Pal, Quang Minh Do, Naoya Takahashi
Current Biology. 2026-04-01; 36(7): 1764-1775.e5
DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2026.02.064

Mazo C(1), Pal S(2), Do QM(2), Takahashi N(3).

Author information:
(1)University of Bordeaux, CNRS, Interdisciplinary Institute for Neuroscience,
IINS, UMR 5297, 33000 Bordeaux, France. Electronic address:
.
(2)University of Bordeaux, CNRS, Interdisciplinary Institute for Neuroscience,
IINS, UMR 5297, 33000 Bordeaux, France.
(3)University of Bordeaux, CNRS, Interdisciplinary Institute for Neuroscience,
IINS, UMR 5297, 33000 Bordeaux, France. Electronic address:
.

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.