Lecture 4: Pooled population data

Lecturer: Mirjana Maras

Pooled population data

Experiment: a monkey is presented two stimulus (one after the other):

• the first one vibrates at a frequency $f_1$
• then the second at a frequency $f_2$

Then, at the end: the monkey has to decide which one the two frequencies was the higher one.

⟶ were is the first frequency $f_1$ remembered/encoded in the brain, so that it can be later used to make a choice?

We look at a spike train for one neuron ⟶ smoothed with a Guassian kernel to get a continuous firing rate.

The higher the frequency $f_1$, the less the neuron fires. The number of spikes decreases with the frequency ⟹ the neuron is sensitive to the frequency.

On top of that, the firing rate increases monotonically with respect to time.