Population code in mouse V1 facilitates read-out of natural scenes through increased sparseness

Details

• Alternative Title:
  Nat Neurosci
• Personal Author:
  Froudarakis, Emmanouil ; Berens, Philipp ; Ecker, Alexander S. ; Cotton, R. James ; Sinz, Fabian H. ; Yatsenko, Dimitri ; Saggau, Peter ; Bethge, Matthias ; Tolias, Andreas S.
• Description:
  Neural codes are believed to have adapted to the statistical properties of the natural environment. However, the principles that govern the organization of ensemble activity in the visual cortex during natural visual input are unknown. We recorded populations of up to 500 neurons in the mouse primary visual cortex and characterized the structure of their activity, comparing responses to natural movies with those to control stimuli. We found that higher order correlations in natural scenes induced a sparser code, in which information is encoded by reliable activation of a smaller set of neurons and can be read out more easily. This computationally advantageous encoding for natural scenes was state-dependent and apparent only in anesthetized and active awake animals, but not during quiet wakefulness. Our results argue for a functional benefit of sparsification that could be a general principle governing the structure of the population activity throughout cortical microcircuits.
• Keywords:
  Action Potentials Animals Female Male Mice Mice, Inbred C57BL Nerve Net Photic Stimulation Visual Cortex Visual Perception Wakefulness

  More +
• Source:
  Nat Neurosci. 17(6):851-857
• Pubmed ID:
  24747577
• Pubmed Central ID:
  PMC4106281
• Document Type:
  Journal Article
• Funding:
  NEI DP1-EY023176/DP/NCCDPHP CDC HHSUnited States/ ; DP1-OD008301/OD/NIH HHSUnited States/ ; DP1 OD008301/OD/NIH HHSUnited States/ ; R01 EY018847/EY/NEI NIH HHSUnited States/ ; P30 EY002520/EY/NEI NIH HHSUnited States/ ; DP1 EY023176/EY/NEI NIH HHSUnited States/ ; R01 DA028525/DA/NIDA NIH HHSUnited States/ ; NEI P30-EY002520/EY/NEI NIH HHSUnited States/
• Volume:
  17
• Issue:
  6
• Collection(s):
  CDC Public Access
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha256:54e149710abe4afb445860aee445ceebd9e821c601ff324b3a6ef57886d84d13
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/27884/cdc_27884_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 1.97 MB ]