scholarly journals Neuronal response variability as a product of divisive normalization; neurobiological implications at a macroscale level

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
pp. 34
Author(s):  
Kathy L. Ruddy ◽  
David M. Cole ◽  
Colin Simon ◽  
Marc T. Bächinger
Keyword(s):  
Potential Role ◽  
Neuronal Response ◽  
Quantitative Model ◽  
Response Variability ◽  
Sensory Cortex ◽  
Neural Oscillations ◽  
Neural Encoding ◽  
Approach Response ◽  
Divisive Normalization

The occurrence of neuronal spikes recorded directly from sensory cortex is highly irregular within and between presentations of an invariant stimulus. The traditional solution has been to average responses across many trials. However, with this approach, response variability is downplayed as noise, so it is assumed that statistically controlling it will reveal the brain’s true response to a stimulus. A mounting body of evidence suggests that this approach is inadequate. For example, experiments show that response variability itself varies as a function of stimulus dimensions like contrast and state dimensions like attention. In other words, response variability has structure, is therefore potentially informative and should be incorporated into models which try to explain neural encoding. In this article we provide commentary on a recently published study by Coen-Cagli and Solomon that incorporates spike variability in a quantitative model, by explaining it as a function of divisive normalization. We consider the potential role of neural oscillations in this process as a potential bridge between the current microscale findings and response variability at the mesoscale/macroscale level.

scholarly journals Temporal prediction elicits rhythmic pre-activation of relevant sensory cortices

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Louise Catheryne Barne ◽  
Andre Mascioli Cravo ◽  
Floris P. de Lange ◽  
Eelke Spaak
Keyword(s):  
Discrimination Task ◽  
Sensory Cortex ◽  
Oscillatory Activity ◽  
Neural Oscillations ◽  
Sensory Discrimination ◽  
Temporal Prediction ◽  
Sensory Cortices ◽  
Feature Based ◽  
Stimulus Features

Being able to anticipate events before they happen facilitates stimulus processing. The anticipation of the contents of events is thought to be implemented by the elicitation of prestimulus templates in sensory cortex. In contrast, the anticipation of the timing of events is typically associated with entrainment of neural oscillations. It is so far unknown whether and in which conditions temporal expectations interact with feature-based expectations, and, consequently, whether entrainment modulates the generation of content-specific sensory templates. In this study, we investigated the role of temporal expectations in a sensory discrimination task. We presented participants with rhythmically interleaved visual and auditory streams of relevant and irrelevant stimuli while measuring neural activity using magnetoencephalography. We found no evidence that rhythmic stimulation induced prestimulus feature templates. However, we did observe clear anticipatory rhythmic pre-activation of the relevant sensory cortices. This oscillatory activity peaked at behaviourally relevant, in-phase, intervals. Our results suggest that temporal expectations about stimulus features do not behave similarly to explicitly cued, non-rhythmic, expectations; yet elicit a distinct form of modality-specific pre-activation.

scholarly journals Relating Divisive Normalization to Neuronal Response Variability

2019 ◽  
Vol 39 (37) ◽  
pp. 7344-7356 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ruben Coen-Cagli ◽  
Selina S. Solomon
Keyword(s):  
Neuronal Response ◽  
Response Variability ◽  
Divisive Normalization

scholarly journals Spontaneous electrical low-frequency oscillations: a possible role in Hydra and all living systems

2021 ◽  
Vol 376 (1820) ◽  
pp. 20190763 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alison Hanson
Keyword(s):  
Potential Role ◽  
Low Frequency ◽  
Model Systems ◽  
Living Systems ◽  
Neural Oscillations ◽  
Low Frequency Oscillations ◽  
Basal Metazoan ◽  
Life On Earth ◽  
Diversity Of Life

As one of the first model systems in biology, the basal metazoan Hydra has been revealing fundamental features of living systems since it was first discovered by Antonie van Leeuwenhoek in the early eighteenth century. While it has become well-established within cell and developmental biology, this tiny freshwater polyp is only now being re-introduced to modern neuroscience where it has already produced a curious finding: the presence of low-frequency spontaneous neural oscillations at the same frequency as those found in the default mode network in the human brain. Surprisingly, increasing evidence suggests such spontaneous electrical low-frequency oscillations (SELFOs) are found across the wide diversity of life on Earth, from bacteria to humans. This paper reviews the evidence for SELFOs in diverse phyla, beginning with the importance of their discovery in Hydra , and hypothesizes a potential role as electrical organism organizers, which supports a growing literature on the role of bioelectricity as a ‘template’ for developmental memory in organism regeneration. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Basal cognition: conceptual tools and the view from the single cell’.

POPDC proteins and cardiac function

2019 ◽  
Vol 47 (5) ◽  
pp. 1393-1404 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Brand
Keyword(s):  
Potential Role ◽  
Striated Muscle ◽  
Short Review ◽  
Effector Proteins ◽  
Muscle Disease ◽  
Disease Genes ◽  
Protein Protein Interaction ◽  
Interaction Partners ◽  
And Function

Abstract The Popeye domain-containing gene family encodes a novel class of cAMP effector proteins in striated muscle tissue. In this short review, we first introduce the protein family and discuss their structure and function with an emphasis on their role in cyclic AMP signalling. Another focus of this review is the recently discovered role of POPDC genes as striated muscle disease genes, which have been associated with cardiac arrhythmia and muscular dystrophy. The pathological phenotypes observed in patients will be compared with phenotypes present in null and knockin mutations in zebrafish and mouse. A number of protein–protein interaction partners have been discovered and the potential role of POPDC proteins to control the subcellular localization and function of these interacting proteins will be discussed. Finally, we outline several areas, where research is urgently needed.

The Effect of Path Length and Display Size on Memory for Spatial Information

2012 ◽  
Vol 59 (3) ◽  
pp. 147-152 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katherine Guérard ◽  
Sébastien Tremblay
Keyword(s):  
Path Length ◽  
Potential Role ◽  
Spatial Information ◽  
Recall Performance ◽  
Minor Role ◽  
Length Effect ◽  
Serial Memory ◽  
Fixed Reference ◽  
A Minor

In serial memory for spatial information, some studies showed that recall performance suffers when the distance between successive locations increases relatively to the size of the display in which they are presented (the path length effect; e.g., Parmentier et al., 2005) but not when distance is increased by enlarging the size of the display (e.g., Smyth & Scholey, 1994). In the present study, we examined the effect of varying the absolute and relative distance between to-be-remembered items on memory for spatial information. We manipulated path length using small (15″) and large (64″) screens within the same design. In two experiments, we showed that distance was disruptive mainly when it is varied relatively to a fixed reference frame, though increasing the size of the display also had a small deleterious effect on recall. The insertion of a retention interval did not influence these effects, suggesting that rehearsal plays a minor role in mediating the effects of distance on serial spatial memory. We discuss the potential role of perceptual organization in light of the pattern of results.

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