Journal article
Adaptive Stimulus Optimization for Auditory Cortical Neurons
Journal of neurophysiology, Vol.94(6), pp.4051-4067
12/01/2005
DOI: 10.1152/jn.00046.2005
PMID: 16135553
Abstract
Despite the extensive physiological work performed on auditory cortex, our understanding of the basic functional properties of auditory cortical neurons is incomplete. For example, it remains unclear what stimulus features are most important for these cells. Determining these features is challenging given the considerable size of the relevant stimulus parameter space as well as the unpredictable nature of many neurons' responses to complex stimuli due to nonlinear integration across frequency. Here we used an adaptive stimulus optimization technique to obtain the preferred spectral input for neurons in macaque primary auditory cortex (AI). This method uses a neuron's response to progressively modify the frequency composition of a stimulus to determine the preferred spectrum. This technique has the advantage of being able to incorporate nonlinear stimulus interactions into a "best estimate" of a neuron's preferred spectrum. The resulting spectra displayed a consistent, relatively simple circumscribed form that was similar across scale and frequency in which excitation and inhibition appeared about equally prominent. In most cases, this structure could be described using two simple models, the Gabor and difference of Gaussians functions. The findings indicate that AI neurons are well suited for extracting important scale-invariant features in sound spectra and suggest that they are designed to efficiently represent natural sounds.
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- Adaptive Stimulus Optimization for Auditory Cortical Neurons
- Creators
- Kevin O'Connor - University of California, DavisChristopher Petkov - Max Planck Institute for Biological CyberneticsMitchell Sutter - Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Publication Details
- Journal of neurophysiology, Vol.94(6), pp.4051-4067
- DOI
- 10.1152/jn.00046.2005
- PMID
- 16135553
- ISSN
- 0022-3077
- eISSN
- 1522-1598
- Language
- English
- Date published
- 12/01/2005
- Academic Unit
- Iowa Neuroscience Institute; Neurosurgery; Otolaryngology
- Record Identifier
- 9984360131602771
Metrics
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