title: A subjective distance between stimuli: quantifying the metric structure of representations.
abstract: As subjects perceive the sensory world, different stimuli elicit a number of neural representations. Here, a subjective distance between stimuli is defined, measuring the degree of similarity between the underlying representations. As an example, the subjective distance between different locations in space is calculated from the activity of rodent's hippocampal place cells and lateral septal cells. Such a distance is compared to the real distance between locations. As the number of sampled neurons increases, the subjective distance shows a tendency to resemble the metrics of real space.
authors.affiliation: Laboratorio de Neurobiología de la Memoria, Departamento de Fisiología, Biología Molecular y Celular, Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales, Universidad de Buenos Aires, Ciudad Universitaria, 1428, Buenos Aires, Argentina. damianoliva@cab.cnea.gov.ar
authors.forename: Damián
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Oliva
authors.forename: Inés
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Samengo
authors.forename: Stefan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Leutgeb
authors.forename: Sheri
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Mizumori
mesh_terms: D000200:Action Potentials / Q000502:physiology*; D000818:Animals; D006624:Hippocampus / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D018782:Maze Learning / Q000502:physiology; D008568:Memory / Q000502:physiology; D008959:Models, Neurological; D009434:Neural Pathways / Q000502:physiology; D009949:Orientation / Q000502:physiology*; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D011338:Probability Theory; D017966:Pyramidal Cells / Q000502:physiology*; D051381:Rats; D020318:Rats, Long-Evans; D012686:Septal Nuclei / Q000502:physiology; D013028:Space Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D009435:Synaptic Transmission / Q000502:physiology