title: The dependence of spike field coherence on expected intensity.
abstract: The coherence between neural spike trains and local-field potential recordings, called spike-field coherence, is of key importance in many neuroscience studies. In this work, aside from questions of estimator performance, we demonstrate that theoretical spike-field coherence for a broad class of spiking models depends on the expected rate of spiking. This rate dependence confounds the phase locking of spike events to field-potential oscillations with overall neuron activity and is demonstrated analytically, for a large class of stochastic models, and in simulation. Finally, the relationship between the spike-field coherence and the intensity field coherence is detailed analytically. This latter quantity is independent of neuron firing rate and, under commonly found conditions, is proportional to the probability that a neuron spikes at a specific phase of field oscillation. Hence, intensity field coherence is a rate-independent measure and a candidate on which to base the appropriate statistical inference of spike field synchrony.
authors.affiliation: Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Boston University, Boston, MA 15213, USA. lepage@math.bu.edu
authors.forename: Kyle Q
authors.initials: KQ
authors.lastname: Lepage
authors.forename: Mark A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Kramer
authors.forename: Uri T
authors.initials: UT
authors.lastname: Eden
mesh_terms: D000200:Action Potentials / Q000502:physiology*; D000465:Algorithms; D008959:Models, Neurological; D009474:Neurons / Q000502:physiology*