Hofmann Volker, Chacron Maurice J
Department of Physiology, McGill University, Montréal, QC, Canada.
Front Integr Neurosci. 2018 Nov 27;12:56. doi: 10.3389/fnint.2018.00056. eCollection 2018.
The fact that perception and behavior depend on the simultaneous and coordinated activity of neural populations is well established. Understanding encoding through neuronal population activity is however complicated by the statistical dependencies between the activities of neurons, which can be present in terms of both their mean (signal correlations) and their response variability (noise correlations). Here, we review the state of knowledge regarding population coding and the influence of correlated variability in the electrosensory pathways of the weakly electric fish . We summarize known population coding strategies at the peripheral level, which are largely unaffected by noise correlations. We then move on to the hindbrain, where existing data from the electrosensory lateral line lobe (ELL) shows the presence of noise correlations. We summarize the current knowledge regarding the mechanistic origins of noise correlations and known mechanisms of stimulus dependent correlation shaping in ELL. We finish by considering future directions for understanding population coding in the electrosensory pathways of weakly electric fish, highlighting the benefits of this model system for understanding the origins and impact of noise correlations on population coding.
感知和行为依赖于神经群体的同步和协调活动这一事实已得到充分证实。然而，通过神经元群体活动来理解编码会因神经元活动之间的统计依赖性而变得复杂，这种依赖性在神经元活动的均值（信号相关性）和响应变异性（噪声相关性）方面都可能存在。在这里，我们回顾了关于群体编码以及相关变异性在弱电鱼电感觉通路中的影响的知识现状。我们总结了外周水平上已知的群体编码策略，这些策略在很大程度上不受噪声相关性的影响。然后我们转向后脑，来自电感觉侧线叶（ELL）的现有数据表明存在噪声相关性。我们总结了关于噪声相关性的机制起源以及ELL中刺激依赖性相关塑造的已知机制的当前知识。最后，我们考虑了理解弱电鱼电感觉通路中群体编码的未来方向，强调了这个模型系统对于理解噪声相关性对群体编码的起源和影响的益处。
