Analysis of stimulus-related activity in rat auditory cortex using complex spectral coefficients

Abstract

Krause BM, Banks MI. Analysis of stimulus-related activity in rat auditory cortex using complex spectral coefficients.

Encoding of natural sounds by variance of the cortical local field potential

“…If neural responses are loosely phase locked to the stimulus and are independent of spontaneous neural activity, the intertrial variance of neural activity will be increased (Fig. 1C) (Krause and Banks 2013;Truccolo et al 2002). Finally, even if a sensory stimulus does not generate any phase-locked response, it can suppress spontaneous neural activity ( Fig.…”

“…1, B and C. The phase resetting theory predicts that intertrial variance should decrease, while the additive response theory does not generate any specific prediction about intertrial variance. For recordings from different cortical areas and under different behavioral states, the intertrial variance of low-frequency LFP has been reported to increase (Krause and Banks 2013;Truccolo et al 2002), decrease (Churchland et al 2010), or remain unaffected (Makinen et al 2005) by sensory stimuli. Therefore, there is no consistent answer about whether sensory stimuli increase or decrease response variance, and it remains unclear whether this heterogeneity is due to differences in cortical areas or whether it even exists among neural populations within the same cortical area.…”