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Millisecond-scale differences in neural activity in auditory cortex can drive decisions

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Abstract

Neurons in the auditory cortex can lock to the fine timing of acoustic stimuli with millisecond precision, but it is not known whether this precise spike timing can be used to guide decisions. We used chronically implanted microelectrode pairs to stimulate neurons in the rat auditory cortex directly and found that rats can exploit differences in the timing of cortical activity that are as short as 3 ms to guide decisions.

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Figure 1: Finely timed cortical microstimulation can drive behavior.

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Acknowledgements

We thank R. Eifert and B. Burbach for technical assistance, A. Kepecs and Z. Mainen for comments on the manuscript, and members of the Zador lab for helpful discussions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, 1 Bungtown Road, Cold Spring Harbor, New York 11724, USA.,

    Yang Yang, Michael R DeWeese, Gonzalo H Otazu & Anthony M Zador

  2. Program in Neuroscience, SUNY at Stony Brook, Stony Brook, 11794–5230, New York, USA

    Yang Yang

  3. Physics Department and Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute, University of California at Berkeley, 132 Barker Hall, #3190, Berkeley, 94720, California, USA

    Michael R DeWeese

Authors
  1. Yang Yang
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  2. Michael R DeWeese
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  3. Gonzalo H Otazu
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  4. Anthony M Zador
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Anthony M Zador.

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Supplementary Figures 1–3 and Supplementary Methods (PDF 532 kb)

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Yang, Y., DeWeese, M., Otazu, G. et al. Millisecond-scale differences in neural activity in auditory cortex can drive decisions. Nat Neurosci 11, 1262–1263 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/nn.2211

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