title: Spiking irregularity and frequency modulate the behavioral report of single-neuron stimulation.
abstract: The action potential activity of single cortical neurons can evoke measurable sensory effects, but it is not known how spiking parameters and neuronal subtypes affect the evoked sensations. Here, we examined the effects of spike train irregularity, spike frequency, and spike number on the detectability of single-neuron stimulation in rat somatosensory cortex. For regular-spiking, putative excitatory neurons, detectability increased with spike train irregularity and decreasing spike frequencies but was not affected by spike number. Stimulation of single, fast-spiking, putative inhibitory neurons led to a larger sensory effect compared to regular-spiking neurons, and the effect size depended only on spike irregularity. An ideal-observer analysis suggests that, under our experimental conditions, rats were using integration windows of a few hundred milliseconds or more. Our data imply that the behaving animal is sensitive to single neurons' spikes and even to their temporal patterning.
authors: Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience, Humboldt University of Berlin, Berlin 10115, Germany.
authors: Guy
authors: G
authors: Doron
authors: Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience, Humboldt University of Berlin, Berlin 10115, Germany.
authors: Moritz
authors: M
authors: von Heimendahl
authors: Institute of Medical Statistics, Computer Sciences and Documentation, Friedrich Schiller University of Jena, Jena 07737, Germany.
authors: Peter
authors: P
authors: Schlattmann
authors: Department of Neuroscience, Erasmus Medical Center, 3015 GE Rotterdam, the Netherlands.
authors: Arthur R
authors: AR
authors: Houweling
authors: Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience, Humboldt University of Berlin, Berlin 10115, Germany. Electronic address: michael.brecht@bccn-berlin.de.
authors: Michael
authors: M
authors: Brecht
mesh_terms: D000200:Action Potentials / Q000502:physiology*; D000818:Animals; D004558:Electric Stimulation; D008297:Male; D008959:Models, Neurological; D009474:Neurons / Q000502:physiology*; D012372:ROC Curve; D051381:Rats; D017208:Rats, Wistar; D012044:Regression Analysis; D013003:Somatosensory Cortex / Q000166:cytology*