Characterizing and interpreting the influence of internal variables on sensory activity

The concept of a tuning curve has been central for our understanding of how the responses of cortical neurons depend on external stimuli. Here, we describe how the influence of unobserved internal variables on sensory responses, in particular correlated neural variability, can be understood in a similar framework. We suggest that this will lead to deeper insights into the relationship between stimulus, sensory responses, and behavior. We review related recent work and discuss its implication for distinguishing feedforward from feedback influences on sensory responses, and for the information contained in those responses.