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Timescales of multineuronal activity patterns reflect temporal structure of visual stimuli.

ABSTRACT: The investigation of distributed coding across multiple neurons in the cortex remains to this date a challenge. Our current understanding of collective encoding of information and the relevant timescales is still limited. Most results are restricted to disparate timescales, focused on either very fast, e.g., spike-synchrony, or slow timescales, e.g., firing rate. Here, we investigated systematically multineuronal activity patterns evolving on different timescales, spanning the whole range from spike-synchrony to mean firing rate. Using multi-electrode recordings from cat visual cortex, we show that cortical responses can be described as trajectories in a high-dimensional pattern space. Patterns evolve on a continuum of coexisting timescales that strongly relate to the temporal properties of stimuli. Timescales consistent with the time constants of neuronal membranes and fast synaptic transmission (5-20 ms) play a particularly salient role in encoding a large amount of stimulus-related information. Thus, to faithfully encode the properties of visual stimuli the brain engages multiple neurons into activity patterns evolving on multiple timescales.

SUBMITTER: Jurjut OF

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3035626 | biostudies-literature | 2011 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Timescales of multineuronal activity patterns reflect temporal structure of visual stimuli.

Jurjuţ Ovidiu F OF Nikolić Danko D Singer Wolf W Yu Shan S Havenith Martha N MN Mureşan Raul C RC

PloS one 20110208 2

The investigation of distributed coding across multiple neurons in the cortex remains to this date a challenge. Our current understanding of collective encoding of information and the relevant timescales is still limited. Most results are restricted to disparate timescales, focused on either very fast, e.g., spike-synchrony, or slow timescales, e.g., firing rate. Here, we investigated systematically multineuronal activity patterns evolving on different timescales, spanning the whole range from s ...[more]

PMID: 21346812

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Timescales of multineuronal activity patterns reflect temporal structure of visual stimuli.

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Timescales of multineuronal activity patterns reflect temporal structure of visual stimuli.

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