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An Automated Method for Characterization of Evoked Single-Trial Local Field Potentials Recorded from Rat Barrel Cortex Under Mechanical Whisker Stimulation

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Abstract

Rodents explore their surroundings through whisking by localizing objects and detecting textures very precisely. During such tactile exploration, whisker deflection is first mechanically transduced by receptors and then information encoded throughout the somatosensory pathway ending in the somatosensory ‘barrel’ cortex. In the barrel cortex, tactile information from a single whisker is segregated and processed in a cortical column corresponding to the deflected whisker. Local Field Potentials (LFPs) generated by whisker deflection in the barrel cortex present typical signatures in terms of shape and amplitude that are related to the activation of the local neuronal populations. Therefore, rigorous analysis of such responses may reveal important features about the function of underlying neuronal microcircuits. In this context, software methods for characterizing single-trial LFPs are needed that are also suitable for online extraction of LFP features and for brain–machine interfacing applications. In this work, we present an automated and efficient method to analyze evoked LFP responses in the rat barrel cortex through automatic removal of stimulation artifacts, detection of single events and characterization of their relevant parameters. Evoked single-trial LFPs recorded under two different anesthetics are examined to demonstrate the feasibility, accuracy and applicability of the method.

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Acknowledgments

Financial support from the 7th Framework Programme of the European Commission through “RAMP” project (www.rampproject.eu) with Contract No. 612058 is acknowledged.

Author's Contribution

This work was carried out in close collaboration between all co-authors. SV identified the research objective. MM and SV conceived the method. CC performed the signal acquisition and manual data analysis. MM performed the programming and the automatic data analysis. MM, CC and SV wrote the paper. All authors have contributed to, seen and approved the final manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. NeuroChip Lab, Department of Biomedical Sciences, University of Padova, 35131, Padua, Italy

    Mufti Mahmud, Claudia Cecchetto & Stefano Vassanelli

  2. Department of Information Engineering, University of Padova, 35131, Padua, Italy

    Claudia Cecchetto

Authors
  1. Mufti Mahmud
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  2. Claudia Cecchetto
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  3. Stefano Vassanelli
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Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Mufti Mahmud or Stefano Vassanelli.

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Conflict of Interest

Mufti Mahmud, Claudia Cecchetto and Stefano Vassanelli have declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

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All procedures followed were in accordance with the ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation (institutional and national) and with the Declaration of Helsinki 1975, as revised in 2008 (5). Additional informed consent was obtained from all patients for which identifying information is included in this article.

Human and Animal Rights

All applicable international, national and institutional guidelines for the care and use of animals were followed.

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Mahmud, M., Cecchetto, C. & Vassanelli, S. An Automated Method for Characterization of Evoked Single-Trial Local Field Potentials Recorded from Rat Barrel Cortex Under Mechanical Whisker Stimulation. Cogn Comput 8, 935–945 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12559-016-9399-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12559-016-9399-3

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