Large-scale two-photon imaging revealed super-sparse population codes in the V1 superficial layer of awake monkeys.
Large-scale two-photon imaging revealed super-sparse population codes in the V1 superficial layer of awake monkeys.
复制标题
大规模双光子成像揭示了清醒猴子 V1 表层的超稀疏群体代码
作者：
Tang S;Zhang Y;Li Z;Li M;Liu F;Jiang H;Lee TS
感觉信息处理的一个一般原则是，大脑必须通过减少处理相同信息的神经元数量来优化效率。神经元群体中感觉表征的稀疏性反映了神经编码的效率。在这里，我们采用大规模的双光子钙成像，以单细胞分辨率检查V1区浅层内大量神经元的反应，同时提供大量的自然视觉刺激，以提供第一个直接测量清醒灵长类动物的种群稀疏性。结果表明，只有0.5%的神经元对任何给定的自然图像有强烈的反应-这表明与以前的测量相比，推断的稀疏性增加了10倍。然而，这些群体活动是必要的，足以区分视觉刺激的高精度，这表明在初级视觉皮层的神经代码是超稀疏和高效的。
One general principle of sensory information processing is that the brain must optimize efficiency by reducing the number of neurons that process the same information. The sparseness of the sensory representations in a population of neurons reflects the efficiency of the neural code. Here, we employ large-scale two-photon calcium imaging to examine the responses of a large population of neurons within the superficial layers of area V1 with single-cell resolution, while simultaneously presenting a large set of natural visual stimuli, to provide the first direct measure of the population sparseness in awake primates. The results show that only 0.5% of neurons respond strongly to any given natural image — indicating a ten-fold increase in the inferred sparseness over previous measurements. These population activities are nevertheless necessary and sufficient to discriminate visual stimuli with high accuracy, suggesting that the neural code in the primary visual cortex is both super-sparse and highly efficient.