Maximum decoding abilities of temporal patterns and synchronized firings: application to auditory neurons responding to click trains and amplitude modulated white noise.
Simultaneous recordings of an increasing number of neurons have recently become available, but few methods have been proposed to handle this activity. Here, we extract and investigate all the possible temporal neural activity patterns based on synchronized firings of neurons recorded on multiple electrodes, or based on bursts of single-electrode activity in cat primary auditory cortex. We apply this to responses to periodic click trains or sinusoïdal amplitude modulated noise by obtaining for each pattern its temporal modulation transfer function. An algorithm that maximizes the mutual information between all patterns and stimuli subsequently leads to the identification of patterns that optimally decode modulation frequency (MF). We show that stimulus information contained in multi-electrode synchronized firing is not redundant with single-electrode firings and leads to improved efficiency of MF decoding. We also show that the combined use of firing rate and temporal codes leads to a better discrimination of the MF.
Gourévitch
Boris
B
Department of Physiology and Biophysics, Department of Psychology, University of Calgary, Calgary, AB, Canada.
Eggermont
Jos J
JJ
Department of Physiology and Biophysics, Department of Psychology, University of Calgary, Calgary, AB, Canada. eggermon@ucalgary.ca.|Department of Psychology, University of Calgary, 2500 University Drive N.W., Calgary, AB, T2N 1N4, Canada. eggermon@ucalgary.ca.
D000161:Acoustic Stimulation / Q000379:methods; D000200:Action Potentials / Q000502:physiology*; D000465:Algorithms; D000818:Animals; D001303:Auditory Cortex / Q000166:cytology; D002415:Cats; D003198:Computer Simulation; D008959:Models, Neurological; D009622:Noise; D010507:Periodicity; D011571:Psychoacoustics; D011984:Sensory Receptor Cells / Q000502:physiology*; D013997:Time Factors