TY - JOUR
T1 - Gamma oscillations of spiking neural populations enhance signal discrimination
AU - Masuda, Naoki
AU - Doiron, Brent
PY - 2007/11
Y1 - 2007/11
N2 - Selective attention is an important filter for complex environments where distractions compete with signals. Attention increases both the gamma-band power of cortical local field potentials and the spike-field coherence within the receptive field of an attended object. However, the mechanisms by which gamma-band activity enhances, if at all, the encoding of input signals are not well understood. We propose that gamma oscillations induce binomial-like spike-count statistics across noisy neural populations. Using simplified models of spiking neurons, we show how the discrimination of static signals based on the population spike-count response is improved with gamma induced binomial statistics. These results give an important mechanistic link between the neural correlates of attention and the discrimination tasks where attention is known to enhance performance. Further, they show how a rhythmicity of spike responses can enhance coding schemes that are not temporally sensitive.
AB - Selective attention is an important filter for complex environments where distractions compete with signals. Attention increases both the gamma-band power of cortical local field potentials and the spike-field coherence within the receptive field of an attended object. However, the mechanisms by which gamma-band activity enhances, if at all, the encoding of input signals are not well understood. We propose that gamma oscillations induce binomial-like spike-count statistics across noisy neural populations. Using simplified models of spiking neurons, we show how the discrimination of static signals based on the population spike-count response is improved with gamma induced binomial statistics. These results give an important mechanistic link between the neural correlates of attention and the discrimination tasks where attention is known to enhance performance. Further, they show how a rhythmicity of spike responses can enhance coding schemes that are not temporally sensitive.
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U2 - 10.1371/journal.pcbi.0030236
DO - 10.1371/journal.pcbi.0030236
M3 - Article
C2 - 18052541
AN - SCOPUS:36949015216
VL - 3
SP - 2348
EP - 2355
JO - PLoS Computational Biology
JF - PLoS Computational Biology
SN - 1553-734X
IS - 11
ER -