Topic: Correlated fluctuations

Correlated fluctuations of neural activity, termed noise correlations (NCs), are widespread in cortex and affected by sensory and non-sensory variables. Past work suggests that divisive normalization (DN), a cortical computation responsible for coordinating neural activity, could explain those modulations of neuronal covariability. However, quantifying the relation between DN and NCs remains challenging, as most successful descriptive models of neural variability do not account for DN. We propose a pairwise stochastic DN model that accounts for the effect of DN on covariability. In the model,