Topic: trial-to-trial firing rate variability

Aging is characterized by impairments in decision-making, memory, and learning. Classical theories suggest that the cognitive decline may be caused by increased neural variability, reducing the signal-to-noise ratio of information processing in the central nervous system. To explicitly test this hypothesis, we investigate behavior and brain activity in young and old mice performing a visual decision-making task. Old animals show relatively worse performance (a shallower psychometric curve and slower reaction times). We then used extracellular neural recordings to quantify single-neuron variabi