Reliability and representational bandwidth in the auditory cortex

DeWeese, M. R., Hromádka, T., Zador, A. M. (November 2005) Reliability and representational bandwidth in the auditory cortex. Neuron, 48 (3). pp. 479-88. ISSN 0896-6273 (Print)

Abstract

It is unclear why there are so many more neurons in sensory cortex than in the sensory periphery. One possibility is that these "extra" neurons are used to overcome cortical noise and faithfully represent the acoustic stimulus. Another possibility is that even after overcoming cortical noise, there is "excess representational bandwidth" available and that this bandwidth is used to represent conjunctions of auditory and nonauditory information for computation. Here, we discuss recent data about neuronal reliability in auditory cortex showing that cortical noise may not be as high as was previously believed. Although at present, the data suggest that auditory cortex neurons can be more reliable than those in the visual cortex, we speculate that the principles governing cortical computation are universal and that visual and other cortical areas can also exploit strategies based on similarly high-fidelity activity.

Item Type:	Paper
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Acoustic Stimulation Action Potentials physiology Animals Auditory Cortex cytology physiology Humans Neurons classification physiology Noise Reproducibility of Results Time Factors Visual Cortex cytology physiology Wakefulness physiology
Subjects:	organism description > animal behavior organism description > animal behavior > auditory organs, tissues, organelles, cell types and functions > tissues types and functions > auditory cortex bioinformatics > computational biology organism description > animal behavior > auditory > hearing organs, tissues, organelles, cell types and functions > cell types and functions > cell types > neurons organs, tissues, organelles, cell types and functions > cell types and functions > cell types > neurons organs, tissues, organelles, cell types and functions > cell types and functions > cell types > neurons
CSHL Authors:	Zador, Anthony M. DeWeese, Michael R. Hromadka, Tomas
Communities:	CSHL labs > Zador lab School of Biological Sciences > Publications
Depositing User:	Leigh Johnson
Date:	3 November 2005
Date Deposited:	28 Mar 2012 19:03
Last Modified:	19 Sep 2014 15:42
Related URLs:	Publisher
URI:	https://repository.cshl.edu/id/eprint/25614

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