Sha Congzhou M, Wang Jian, Mailman Richard B, Yang Yang, Dokholyan Nikolay V
Department of Engineering Science and Mechanics, Penn State University, University Park, PA USA.
Department of Pharmacology, Penn State College of Medicine, Hershey, PA USA.
bioRxiv. 2023 Aug 15:2023.05.16.541018. doi: 10.1101/2023.05.16.541018.
The question of how consciousness and behavior arise from neural activity is fundamental to understanding the brain, and to improving the diagnosis and treatment of neurological and psychiatric disorders. There is significant murine and primate literature on how behavior is related to the electrophysiological activity of the medial prefrontal cortex and its role in working memory processes such as planning and decision-making. Existing experimental designs, however, have insufficient statistical power to unravel the complex processes of the prefrontal cortex. We therefore examined the theoretical limitations of such experiments, providing concrete guidelines for robust and reproducible science. We piloted the use of dynamic time warping and associated statistical tests to data from neuron spike trains and local field potentials, to quantify neural network synchronicity and correlate neuroelectrophysiology with rat behavior. Our results indicate the statistical limitations of existing data, making meaningful comparison between dynamic time warping with traditional Fourier and wavelet analysis currently impossible until larger and cleaner datasets are available.
The prefrontal cortex is important in decision-making, yet no robust method currently exists to correlate neuron firing in the PFC to behavior. We argue that existing experimental designs are ill-suited to addressing these scientific questions, and we propose a potential method using dynamic time warping to analyze PFC neural electrical activity. We conclude that careful curation of experimental controls is needed to separate true neural signals from noise accurately.
意识和行为如何从神经活动中产生的问题，对于理解大脑以及改善神经和精神疾病的诊断与治疗至关重要。关于行为如何与内侧前额叶皮质的电生理活动相关，以及其在诸如计划和决策等工作记忆过程中的作用，有大量的小鼠和灵长类动物文献。然而，现有的实验设计在统计效力上不足以揭示前额叶皮质的复杂过程。因此，我们研究了此类实验的理论局限性，为开展稳健且可重复的科学研究提供了具体指导方针。我们尝试将动态时间规整及相关统计测试应用于神经元放电序列和局部场电位数据，以量化神经网络同步性，并将神经电生理学与大鼠行为相关联。我们的结果表明了现有数据的统计局限性，在获得更大且更纯净的数据集之前，目前无法将动态时间规整与传统傅里叶分析和小波分析进行有意义的比较。
前额叶皮质在决策中很重要，但目前尚无将前额叶皮质中的神经元放电与行为相关联的稳健方法。我们认为现有实验设计不适于解决这些科学问题，并且我们提出了一种使用动态时间规整来分析前额叶皮质神经电活动的潜在方法。我们得出结论，需要精心设计实验对照，以准确地将真实神经信号与噪声分离。
