Burst firing is a neural code in an insect auditory system
Various classes of neurons alternate between high-frequency discharges and silent intervals. This phenomenon is called burst firing. To analyze burst activity in an insect system, grasshopper auditory receptor neurons were recorded in vivo for several distinct stimulus types. The experimental data s...
| Format: | Article |
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| Language: | English |
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Frontiers Media S.A.
2008-07-01
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| Series: | Frontiers in Computational Neuroscience |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/neuro.10.003.2008/full |
| _version_ | 1828174280464007168 |
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| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Various classes of neurons alternate between high-frequency discharges and silent intervals. This phenomenon is called burst firing. To analyze burst activity in an insect system, grasshopper auditory receptor neurons were recorded in vivo for several distinct stimulus types. The experimental data show that both burst probability and burst characteristics are strongly influenced by temporal modulations of the acoustic stimulus. The tendency to burst, hence, is not only determined by cell-intrinsic processes, but also by their interaction with the stimulus time course. We study this interaction quantitatively and observe that bursts containing a certain number of spikes occur shortly after stimulus deflections of specific intensity and duration. Our findings suggest a sparse neural code where information about the stimulus is represented by the number of spikes per burst, irrespective of the detailed interspike-interval structure within a burst. This compact representation cannot be interpreted as a firing-rate code. An information-theoretical analysis reveals that the number of spikes per burst reliably conveys information about the amplitude and duration of sound transients, whereas their time of occurrence is reflected by the burst onset time. The investigated neurons encode almost half of the total transmitted information in burst activity. |
| first_indexed | 2024-04-12T04:09:47Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-784a8daebc4240889779f29042dd2029 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 1662-5188 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-04-12T04:09:47Z |
| publishDate | 2008-07-01 |
| publisher | Frontiers Media S.A. |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Frontiers in Computational Neuroscience |
| spelling | doaj.art-784a8daebc4240889779f29042dd20292022-12-22T03:48:32ZengFrontiers Media S.A.Frontiers in Computational Neuroscience1662-51882008-07-01210.3389/neuro.10.003.2008172Burst firing is a neural code in an insect auditory systemVarious classes of neurons alternate between high-frequency discharges and silent intervals. This phenomenon is called burst firing. To analyze burst activity in an insect system, grasshopper auditory receptor neurons were recorded in vivo for several distinct stimulus types. The experimental data show that both burst probability and burst characteristics are strongly influenced by temporal modulations of the acoustic stimulus. The tendency to burst, hence, is not only determined by cell-intrinsic processes, but also by their interaction with the stimulus time course. We study this interaction quantitatively and observe that bursts containing a certain number of spikes occur shortly after stimulus deflections of specific intensity and duration. Our findings suggest a sparse neural code where information about the stimulus is represented by the number of spikes per burst, irrespective of the detailed interspike-interval structure within a burst. This compact representation cannot be interpreted as a firing-rate code. An information-theoretical analysis reveals that the number of spikes per burst reliably conveys information about the amplitude and duration of sound transients, whereas their time of occurrence is reflected by the burst onset time. The investigated neurons encode almost half of the total transmitted information in burst activity.http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/neuro.10.003.2008/fullInformation TheoryNeural Codeauditory receptorburst spikingsensory encoding |
| spellingShingle | Burst firing is a neural code in an insect auditory system Frontiers in Computational Neuroscience Information Theory Neural Code auditory receptor burst spiking sensory encoding |
| title | Burst firing is a neural code in an insect auditory system |
| title_full | Burst firing is a neural code in an insect auditory system |
| title_fullStr | Burst firing is a neural code in an insect auditory system |
| title_full_unstemmed | Burst firing is a neural code in an insect auditory system |
| title_short | Burst firing is a neural code in an insect auditory system |
| title_sort | burst firing is a neural code in an insect auditory system |
| topic | Information Theory Neural Code auditory receptor burst spiking sensory encoding |
| url | http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/neuro.10.003.2008/full |