QUICK SEARCH:   [advanced] Author: Keyword(s): Year:  Vol:  Page:

HOME  |   SEARCH  |   ARCHIVE  |   SUBSCRIBE  |   CONTACT  |   HELP

The Journal of Neuroscience, October 12, 2005, 25(41):9524-9534; doi:10.1523/JNEUROSCI.1804-05.2005

This Article Full Text Full Text (PDF) Submit an eLetter Alert me when this article is cited Alert me when eLetters are posted Alert me if a correction is posted Citation Map Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in ISI Web of Science Similar articles in PubMed Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Citing Articles Citing Articles via HighWire Citing Articles via ISI Web of Science (3) Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Escabí, M. A. Articles by Read, H. L. Search for Related Content PubMed PubMed Citation Articles by Escabí, M. A. Articles by Read, H. L.

 Previous Article  |  Next Article 

Behavioral/Systems/Cognitive
The Contribution of Spike Threshold to Acoustic Feature Selectivity, Spike Information Content, and Information Throughput

Monty A. Escabí,^1,2 Reza Nassiri,² Lee M. Miller,⁴ Christoph E. Schreiner,⁵ and Heather L. Read³

¹Electrical and Computer Engineering, ²Biomedical Engineering, and ³Psychology, University of Connecticut, Storrs, Connecticut 06269-1157, ⁴Center for Mind and Brain, University of California, Davis, California 95616, and ⁵W. M. Keck Center for Integrative Neuroscience, University of California, San Francisco, California 94143

Hypotheses of sensory coding range from the notion of nonlinear "feature detectors" to linear rate coding strategies. Here, we report that auditory neurons exhibit a novel trade-off in the relationship between sound selectivity and the information that can be communicated to a postsynaptic cell. Recordings from the cat inferior colliculus show that neurons with the lowest spike rates reliably signal the occurrence of stereotyped stimulus features, whereas those with high response rates exhibit lower selectivity. The highest information conveyed by individual action potentials comes from neurons with low spike rate and high selectivity. Surprisingly, spike information is inversely related to spike rates, following a trend similar to that of feature selectivity. Information per time interval, however, was proportional to measured spike rates. A neuronal model based on the spike threshold of the synaptic drive accurately accounts for this trade-off: higher thresholds enhance the spiking fidelity at the expense of limiting the total communicated information. Such a constraint on the specificity and throughput creates a continuum in the neural code with two extreme forms of information transfer that likely serve complementary roles in the representation of the auditory environment.

Key words: inferior colliculus; spike threshold; feature selectivity; mutual information; linear rate code; spectrotemporal; neural code

---

Received May 5, 2005; revised August 28, 2005; accepted August 30, 2005.

This article has been cited by other articles:

				C. A. Atencio and C. E. Schreiner Spectrotemporal Processing Differences between Auditory Cortical Fast-Spiking and Regular-Spiking Neurons J. Neurosci., April 9, 2008; 28(15): 3897 - 3910. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				C. A. Atencio, D. T. Blake, F. Strata, S. W. Cheung, M. M. Merzenich, and C. E. Schreiner Frequency-Modulation Encoding in the Primary Auditory Cortex of the Awake Owl Monkey J Neurophysiol, October 1, 2007; 98(4): 2182 - 2195. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				D. L. Ringach and B. J. Malone The Operating Point of the Cortex: Neurons as Large Deviation Detectors J. Neurosci., July 18, 2007; 27(29): 7673 - 7683. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

Home  |   Search  |   Archive  |   Subscribe  |   Contact  |   Help