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Characterisation of sensitivity and orientation tuning for visually responsive ensembles in the zebrafish tectum
Sensory coding relies on ensembles of co-active neurons, but these ensembles change from trial to trial of the same stimulus. This is due in part to wide variability in the responsiveness of neurons within these ensembles, with some neurons responding regularly to a stimulus while others respond inc...
Autores principales: | , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Nature Publishing Group
2016
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5054398/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27713561 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep34887 |
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author | Thompson, A. W. Scott, E. K. |
author_facet | Thompson, A. W. Scott, E. K. |
author_sort | Thompson, A. W. |
collection | PubMed |
description | Sensory coding relies on ensembles of co-active neurons, but these ensembles change from trial to trial of the same stimulus. This is due in part to wide variability in the responsiveness of neurons within these ensembles, with some neurons responding regularly to a stimulus while others respond inconsistently. The specific functional properties that cause neurons to respond more or less consistently have not been thoroughly explored. Here, we have examined neuronal ensembles in the zebrafish tectum responsive to repeated presentations of a visual stimulus, and have explored how these populations change when the orientation or brightness of the stimulus is altered. We found a continuum of response probabilities across the neurons in the visual ensembles, with the most responsive neurons focused toward the spatial centre of the ensemble. As the visual stimulus was made dimmer, these neurons remained active, suggesting higher overall responsiveness. However, these cells appeared to represent the most consistent end of a continuum, rather than a functionally distinct “core” of highly responsive neurons. Reliably responsive cells were broadly tuned to a range of stimulus orientations suggesting that, at least for this stimulus property, tight stimulus tuning was not responsible for their consistent responses. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-5054398 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2016 |
publisher | Nature Publishing Group |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-50543982016-10-19 Characterisation of sensitivity and orientation tuning for visually responsive ensembles in the zebrafish tectum Thompson, A. W. Scott, E. K. Sci Rep Article Sensory coding relies on ensembles of co-active neurons, but these ensembles change from trial to trial of the same stimulus. This is due in part to wide variability in the responsiveness of neurons within these ensembles, with some neurons responding regularly to a stimulus while others respond inconsistently. The specific functional properties that cause neurons to respond more or less consistently have not been thoroughly explored. Here, we have examined neuronal ensembles in the zebrafish tectum responsive to repeated presentations of a visual stimulus, and have explored how these populations change when the orientation or brightness of the stimulus is altered. We found a continuum of response probabilities across the neurons in the visual ensembles, with the most responsive neurons focused toward the spatial centre of the ensemble. As the visual stimulus was made dimmer, these neurons remained active, suggesting higher overall responsiveness. However, these cells appeared to represent the most consistent end of a continuum, rather than a functionally distinct “core” of highly responsive neurons. Reliably responsive cells were broadly tuned to a range of stimulus orientations suggesting that, at least for this stimulus property, tight stimulus tuning was not responsible for their consistent responses. Nature Publishing Group 2016-10-07 /pmc/articles/PMC5054398/ /pubmed/27713561 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep34887 Text en Copyright © 2016, The Author(s) http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |
spellingShingle | Article Thompson, A. W. Scott, E. K. Characterisation of sensitivity and orientation tuning for visually responsive ensembles in the zebrafish tectum |
title | Characterisation of sensitivity and orientation tuning for visually responsive ensembles in the zebrafish tectum |
title_full | Characterisation of sensitivity and orientation tuning for visually responsive ensembles in the zebrafish tectum |
title_fullStr | Characterisation of sensitivity and orientation tuning for visually responsive ensembles in the zebrafish tectum |
title_full_unstemmed | Characterisation of sensitivity and orientation tuning for visually responsive ensembles in the zebrafish tectum |
title_short | Characterisation of sensitivity and orientation tuning for visually responsive ensembles in the zebrafish tectum |
title_sort | characterisation of sensitivity and orientation tuning for visually responsive ensembles in the zebrafish tectum |
topic | Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5054398/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27713561 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep34887 |
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