Topic: neuronal noise

Correlated activity between neurons can cause variability in behavior across trials, as trial-by-trial neuronal noise will propagate through the motor system. The extent to which correlated activity affects behavior depends on the properties of its translation into movement. A major hurdle in studying the effect of neural correlations on behavior is the need to assume a model of the relationship between neural activity and behavior. We developed a novel method that estimates the contribution of correlations to behavior, with minimal assumptions. We applied this method to the frontal eye field