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Related Concept Videos

Somatosensation01:33

Somatosensation

The somatosensory system relays sensory information from the skin, mucous membranes, limbs, and joints. Somatosensation is more familiarly known as the sense of touch. A typical somatosensory pathway includes three types of long neurons: primary, secondary, and tertiary. Primary neurons have cell bodies located near the spinal cord in groups of neurons called dorsal root ganglia. The sensory neurons of ganglia innervate designated areas of skin called dermatomes.
The Role of Ion Channels in Neuronal Computation01:19

The Role of Ion Channels in Neuronal Computation

A postsynaptic neuron usually receives numerous impulses from several other presynaptic neurons. The axon hillock of the postsynaptic neuron integrates all these signals and determines the likelihood of firing an action potential.
Sometimes a single EPSP is strong enough to induce an action potential in the postsynaptic neuron. However, multiple presynaptic inputs must often create EPSPs around the same time for the postsynaptic neuron to be sufficiently depolarized to fire an action potential.
Graded Potential01:19

Graded Potential

Graded potentials are localized fluctuations in the cell membrane's electrical charge, commonly found in the dendrites of neurons. The magnitude of these potential changes depends on the strength of the initiating stimulus. In a membrane at its resting potential, a graded potential signifies a voltage shift either above -70 mV or below -70 mV.
Graded potentials fall into two categories: depolarizing and hyperpolarizing. Depolarizing graded potentials typically occur when sodium (Na+) or calcium...
Sensory Perception: Organization of the Somatosensory System01:11

Sensory Perception: Organization of the Somatosensory System

The somatosensory system is the central and peripheral nervous system component that senses and processes touch, pressure, pain, temperature, and body position or proprioception. The process of sensation takes place at three levels:
The receptor level:
The receptor level is the first stage of sensation. It involves the detection of a stimulus by specialized sensory receptors. The stimulus must arrive within the receptor's receptive field. Next, the receptor converts the energy of the stimulus...
Somatosensory, Motor, and Association Cortex01:23

Somatosensory, Motor, and Association Cortex

The somatosensory cortex in the parietal lobes is crucial for interpreting sensory data such as touch, temperature, and proprioception. The somatosensory cortex, situated in the parietal lobes, plays a vital role in interpreting sensory information like touch, temperature, and proprioception—awareness of body position. This specialized brain region features an organized structure wherein neurons at the top primarily process sensations originating from the lower body. In contrast, those at the...
Perceiving Loudness, Pitch, and Location01:21

Perceiving Loudness, Pitch, and Location

The human brain perceives pitch through two primary mechanisms reflected in place theory and frequency theory. Each mechanism describes how sound waves are interpreted as specific pitches by the brain, offering insights into the intricate processes of auditory perception.
Place theory, or place coding, suggests that different pitches are heard because various sound waves activate specific locations along the cochlea's basilar membrane. The brain determines the pitch of a sound by identifying...

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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Jun 21, 2026

An Experimental Platform to Study the Closed-loop Performance of Brain-machine Interfaces
10:51

An Experimental Platform to Study the Closed-loop Performance of Brain-machine Interfaces

Published on: March 10, 2011

Parietal neurons encode expected gains in instrumental information.

Nicholas C Foley1, Simon P Kelly1, Himanshu Mhatre1

  • 1Department of Neuroscience, Columbia University, New York, NY 10032.

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
|April 5, 2017
PubMed
Summary

The brain actively selects relevant information for decisions. Parietal cortical neurons encode expected uncertainty reduction from information-seeking eye movements, guiding action-relevant cue sampling.

Keywords:
attentiondecisionsinformation samplingrewardsaccades

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Area of Science:

  • Neuroscience
  • Cognitive Science
  • Decision Making

Background:

  • Animals use multiple information sources, but selecting relevant ones is crucial for effective learning and action.
  • Understanding the brain's policies for sampling information is key to decision-making, yet neural mechanisms remain unclear.
  • Previous research identified neural correlates for seeking reward information, but not for instrumental information guiding actions.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate how parietal cortical neurons encode choices of instrumental information.
  • To determine if neurons encode the expected benefits of acquiring information for subsequent actions.
  • To explore the neural basis of active information sampling in decision-making.

Main Methods:

  • Recording activity of parietal cortical neurons during oculomotor tasks.
  • Analyzing neural responses before information-seeking saccades.
  • Differentiating neural signals related to information value from visual, saccadic, and reward-related modulations.

Main Results:

  • Parietal neurons showed responses encoding the expected reduction in uncertainty before an information-sampling saccade.
  • These neural signals were distinct from visual, saccadic, and reward prediction error signals.
  • Individual cells encoded decision variables based on informational factors, not just reward correlation.

Conclusions:

  • Parietal cortical neurons play a role in actively sampling action-relevant cues by encoding informational value.
  • The brain actively assesses the informational benefit of potential actions to guide information seeking.
  • These findings advance our understanding of neural mechanisms underlying information-driven decision-making.