Wasserman G S
Department of Psychological Sciences, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Ind. 47907-1364.
Biol Signals. 1992 May-Jun;1(3):117-42. doi: 10.1159/000109318.
The neural coding problem is defined and several possible answers to it are reviewed. A widely accepted answer descends from early suggestions that neural activity, in general, is isomorphic with sensation and that the biological signals resident in the axons of neurons, in particular, are given by their frequency of firing. More recent data are reviewed which indicate that the pattern of neural responses may also be informative. Such data led to the formulation of the multiple meaning theory which suggests the neural pattern may encode different information features in single responses. After a period in which attention turned elsewhere, the multiple meaning theory has quite recently been revived and has stimulated novel and careful experimental investigations. A corollary theory, the task dependence hypothesis, suggests that these information-bearing multiple response features are accessed differentially in different behavioral tasks. These theories place stringent temporal requirements on the generation and analysis of neural responses. Recent data are examined indicating that both requirements may indeed be satisfied by the nervous system. Finally, several methods of experimentally testing such coding theories are described; they involve manipulating the biological signals of neurons and observing the effect of these manipulations on behavior.
本文定义了神经编码问题，并回顾了几种可能的答案。一个被广泛接受的答案源于早期的观点，即一般来说，神经活动与感觉同构，特别是神经元轴突中存在的生物信号由其放电频率给出。本文回顾了最近的数据，这些数据表明神经反应模式也可能包含信息。这些数据导致了多重意义理论的形成，该理论认为神经模式可能在单个反应中编码不同的信息特征。在一段时间里，注意力转向了其他地方，最近多重意义理论又重新兴起，并激发了新颖而细致的实验研究。一个推论理论，即任务依赖假说，表明这些承载信息的多重反应特征在不同的行为任务中被不同地利用。这些理论对神经反应的产生和分析提出了严格的时间要求。本文研究了最近的数据，表明神经系统确实可以满足这两个要求。最后，描述了几种通过实验测试此类编码理论的方法；它们涉及操纵神经元的生物信号，并观察这些操纵对行为的影响。
