Signal-to-noise ratio

…and age-related macular degeneration. However, the death of rods and cones allows retinoids to permeate the inner retina, causing retinal ganglion cells to become spontaneously hyperactive, severely reducing the signal-to-noise ratio, and creating interference in the communication between the surviving retina and the brain. Treatments aimed at blocking or reducing hyperactivity improve vision initiated from surviving photoreceptors and could enhance the signal fidelity genera

Schizophrenia is a complex disorder known for its positive symptoms: delusions and hallucinations. However, the impact of schizophrenia on function is mostly due to its executive dysfunction. Mechanistically, it is known that the prefrontal cortex (PFC) is dysfunctional in this disorder and that there is a general excitatory/inhibitory (E/I) imbalance in the schizophrenia brain. However, whether schizophrenia executive dysfunction can be specifically attributed to prefrontal E/I imbalance is unknown. Here, through a series of experiments across schizophrenia-relevant mouse models, we show the

Dual-task interference is a widely observed phenomenon where the decision-making becomes less efficient (slower or less accurate) [1]. This inefficiency is proposed to be a potential interference between the two decision-making processes, but the nature and extent of this interference have been debated [2]. For example, when two decisions are required simultaneously, dual-task interference might arise due to lower signals or higher noise available for each decision. Furthermore, the suppression of the signal may be partial or complete. However, the nature and extent of dual-task interference c

Understanding the neural mechanisms governing different states of cortical processing is pivotal for unraveling the cognitive processes underpinning perception. Observing freely-behaving animals offers a naturalistic environment that elicits a manifold of dynamically changing cognitive and behavioral states, and thus reflects real-world scenarios more accurately than under anesthesia or head-fixed conditions. In this study, we explore the interplay between evoked and spontaneous population activity and its impact on auditory processing within the primary auditory cortex of freely-moving gerbil

…during development and tactile alterations in autistic individuals include differences in stimulus perception and sensory-related neural excitability. Better understanding and synthetizing these features is crucial in characterizing altered tactile experience in autism and can provide

…per degree, with 200 ms exposure duration and variyng signal-to-noise ratio (SNR; signal=image; noise=white noise) according to a random sampling function integrating sine waves with 5-55 Hz frequencies in steps of 5 Hz. Classificat

Aims: nowadays, commercial lightweight electroencephalography (EEG) headsets such as Emotiv EPOC and Muse are gaining popularity in the neuroscience community, mostly in research that monitors natural behaviour outside traditional laboratory settings. These devices often utilize only a few dry or active electrodes in specific locations and signal quality is often inferior compared to their traditional counterparts equipped with electrode caps that require conductive paste for proper functioning. In this study, we wanted to assess the feasibility of a portable, dry electrode-based EEG headset m

…shown that the MD enhances prefrontal signal-to-noise ratio in decision making under uncertainty [3]. However, the computational mechanisms by which the MD enhances prefrontal activity in decision making under un

…In particular, the low signal-to-noise ratio restrains the opportunity to identify meaningful patterns in a supervised fashion. Here we combined Magnetoencephalography (MEG) recordings with advanced decoding strategy to classify finger movements at single trial level. We recorded eight subjects performing a serial reaction time task, where they pressed four

In vivo, single neurons have high trial-to-trial variability in their information transmission, which presents a challenge for networks whose outputs must be consistent for high task performance. Reliability becomes increasingly difficult to attain for working memory tasks where information must be preserved for extended periods of time. This implies that relative to systems without noise, the brain must have mechanisms dedicated to compensating for unreliability in neuron activity. How trained networks mitigate the effects of noise while completing working memory tasks remains largely unexplo

In many species and behaviors, learning and memory formation involve plasticity in at least two distinct neural pathways, responsible for short and long-term learning, and a process of consolidation requiring interaction between them. A well-known example is the consolidation of hippocampal memory traces into the neocortex in mammals. Consolidation mechanisms are also observed in motor learning (between cortical and subcortical structures) and associative learning in insects (between subregions of the mushroom body). Here, we propose a model that captures common computational principles und

Training subjects to discriminate fine details of stimuli can improve perceptual capabilities, a phenomenon known as perceptual learning (PL). Experiments have discovered intriguing psychophysical findings despite the simple stimuli (e.g., Gabor patches) and training procedures (e.g., 2AFC task) involved. Finding explanations for these learning effects could shed light on sensory plasticity in adulthood and constraints in sensory processing. A profound feature of (visual) PL is its slow learning speed, which can take days of training and hundreds or thousands of trials for the performance to s

To prevail in a dynamic and noisy environment, the brain must create reliable and meaningful representations from sensory inputs that are often ambiguous or corrupt. Since only information that permeates the cortical hierarchy can influence sensory perception and decision-making, it is critical that noisy external stimuli are encoded and propagated through different processing stages with minimal signal degradation. Here we hypothesize that stimulus-specific pathways akin to cortical topographic maps may provide the structural scaffold for such signal routing. We investigate whether the featur

…detectability remains possible if low signal-to-noise ratio and when sequence events occur at