Sensitivity to perturbations in vivo implies high noise and suggests rate coding in cortex
Michael London,
Arnd Roth,
Lisa Beeren,
Michael Häusser and
Peter E. Latham ()
Additional contact information
Michael London: Physiology and Pharmacology, University College London, Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT, UK
Arnd Roth: Physiology and Pharmacology, University College London, Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT, UK
Lisa Beeren: Physiology and Pharmacology, University College London, Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT, UK
Michael Häusser: Physiology and Pharmacology, University College London, Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT, UK
Peter E. Latham: Gatsby Computational Neuroscience Unit, University College London, Queen Square, London WC1N 3AR, UK
Nature, 2010, vol. 466, issue 7302, 123-127
Abstract:
Neural coding: no time for noise Neural responses are variable — identical sensory stimuli produce different responses — but it is not clear whether this variability carries important information, or whether it is just noise. London et al. characterize the sensitivity to small fluctuations of in vivo cortical networks in rat barrel cortex in the context of their consequences for neural coding. A perturbation equivalent to adding a single spike in one neuron produces about 28 additional spikes in its projection targets and a detectable increase in local firing rate. Simulations suggest that this amplification leads to large intrinsic variations in the system that are pure noise, carrying no information about the input, and therefore unsuited for carrying a reliable temporal code. The authors conclude that rat barrel cortex is likely to use primarily a rate code.
Date: 2010
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (14)
Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature09086 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.
Export reference: BibTeX
RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan)
HTML/Text
Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:nature:v:466:y:2010:i:7302:d:10.1038_nature09086
Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/
DOI: 10.1038/nature09086
Access Statistics for this article
Nature is currently edited by Magdalena Skipper
More articles in Nature from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().