Efficient population coding of naturalistic whisker motion in the ventro-posterior medial thalamus based on precise spike timing
The rodent whisker-associated thalamic nucleus (VPM) contains a somatotopic map where whisker representation is divided into distinct neuronal sub-populations, called 'barreloids'. Each barreloid projects to its associated cortical barrel column and so forms a gateway for incoming sensory...
| Main Authors: | , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Frontiers Media S.A.
2015-09-01
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| Series: | Frontiers in Neural Circuits |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fncir.2015.00050/full |
| _version_ | 1817968223443746816 |
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| author | Michael R Bale Michael R Bale Michael R Bale Robin A. A. Ince Robin A. A. Ince Greta eSantagata Rasmus S Petersen |
| author_facet | Michael R Bale Michael R Bale Michael R Bale Robin A. A. Ince Robin A. A. Ince Greta eSantagata Rasmus S Petersen |
| author_sort | Michael R Bale |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | The rodent whisker-associated thalamic nucleus (VPM) contains a somatotopic map where whisker representation is divided into distinct neuronal sub-populations, called 'barreloids'. Each barreloid projects to its associated cortical barrel column and so forms a gateway for incoming sensory stimuli to the barrel cortex. We aimed to determine how the population of neurons within one barreloid encodes naturalistic whisker motion. In rats, we recorded the extracellular activity of up to 9 single neurons within a single barreloid, by implanting silicon probes parallel to the longitudinal axis of the barreloids. We found that play-back of texture-induced whisker motion evoked sparse responses, timed with millisecond precision. At the population level, there was synchronous activity: however, different subsets of neurons were synchronously active at different times. Mutual information between population responses and whisker motion increased near linearly with population size. When normalised to factor out firing rate differences, we found that texture was encoded with greater informational-efficiency than white noise. These results indicate that, within each VPM barreloid, there is a rich and efficient population code for naturalistic whisker motion based on precisely timed, population spike patterns. |
| first_indexed | 2024-04-13T20:06:03Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-8a4303ba84be4ee1badadffba802d419 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 1662-5110 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-04-13T20:06:03Z |
| publishDate | 2015-09-01 |
| publisher | Frontiers Media S.A. |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Frontiers in Neural Circuits |
| spelling | doaj.art-8a4303ba84be4ee1badadffba802d4192022-12-22T02:32:00ZengFrontiers Media S.A.Frontiers in Neural Circuits1662-51102015-09-01910.3389/fncir.2015.00050155198Efficient population coding of naturalistic whisker motion in the ventro-posterior medial thalamus based on precise spike timingMichael R Bale0Michael R Bale1Michael R Bale2Robin A. A. Ince3Robin A. A. Ince4Greta eSantagata5Rasmus S Petersen6University of SussexThe University of ManchesterInstituto de Neurociencias Alicante UMH-CSICUniversity of GlasgowThe University of ManchesterThe University of ManchesterThe University of ManchesterThe rodent whisker-associated thalamic nucleus (VPM) contains a somatotopic map where whisker representation is divided into distinct neuronal sub-populations, called 'barreloids'. Each barreloid projects to its associated cortical barrel column and so forms a gateway for incoming sensory stimuli to the barrel cortex. We aimed to determine how the population of neurons within one barreloid encodes naturalistic whisker motion. In rats, we recorded the extracellular activity of up to 9 single neurons within a single barreloid, by implanting silicon probes parallel to the longitudinal axis of the barreloids. We found that play-back of texture-induced whisker motion evoked sparse responses, timed with millisecond precision. At the population level, there was synchronous activity: however, different subsets of neurons were synchronously active at different times. Mutual information between population responses and whisker motion increased near linearly with population size. When normalised to factor out firing rate differences, we found that texture was encoded with greater informational-efficiency than white noise. These results indicate that, within each VPM barreloid, there is a rich and efficient population code for naturalistic whisker motion based on precisely timed, population spike patterns.http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fncir.2015.00050/fullInformation TheorysomatosensorysynchronyNeural codingvibrissaVPM |
| spellingShingle | Michael R Bale Michael R Bale Michael R Bale Robin A. A. Ince Robin A. A. Ince Greta eSantagata Rasmus S Petersen Efficient population coding of naturalistic whisker motion in the ventro-posterior medial thalamus based on precise spike timing Frontiers in Neural Circuits Information Theory somatosensory synchrony Neural coding vibrissa VPM |
| title | Efficient population coding of naturalistic whisker motion in the ventro-posterior medial thalamus based on precise spike timing |
| title_full | Efficient population coding of naturalistic whisker motion in the ventro-posterior medial thalamus based on precise spike timing |
| title_fullStr | Efficient population coding of naturalistic whisker motion in the ventro-posterior medial thalamus based on precise spike timing |
| title_full_unstemmed | Efficient population coding of naturalistic whisker motion in the ventro-posterior medial thalamus based on precise spike timing |
| title_short | Efficient population coding of naturalistic whisker motion in the ventro-posterior medial thalamus based on precise spike timing |
| title_sort | efficient population coding of naturalistic whisker motion in the ventro posterior medial thalamus based on precise spike timing |
| topic | Information Theory somatosensory synchrony Neural coding vibrissa VPM |
| url | http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fncir.2015.00050/full |
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