Neuronal variability and tuning are balanced to optimize naturalistic self-motion coding in primate vestibular...

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Computational Neuroscience
• Sensory Coding

Background:

• Neural coding strategies are assumed to adapt to natural stimulus statistics.
• Optimizing information transmission often involves temporally decorrelated (whitened) neural responses.
• The role of neuronal variability in optimizing neural coding is theoretically significant but experimentally underexplored.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the role of neuronal variability in optimizing neural coding during naturalistic self-motion.
• To determine if neural responses in the vestibular system are adapted to natural stimulus statistics.
• To provide experimental evidence for the interplay between neuronal tuning and variability in sensory processing.

Main Methods:

• Recording neural activity from early vestibular pathways during naturalistic self-motion.
• Analyzing neural response properties, including temporal decorrelation and tuning functions.
• Employing computational modeling to understand the contribution of neuronal variability and tuning.

Main Results:

• Central vestibular neurons exhibited temporally whitened responses.
• These whitened responses could not be solely explained by the neurons' tuning functions.
• Neuronal variability and tuning were found to be matched to natural stimulus statistics, complementing each other.

Conclusions:

• Neuronal variability plays a crucial role in optimizing neural coding, alongside tuning.
• The brain utilizes a strategy where variability and tuning jointly achieve temporal decorrelation.
• This coordinated strategy enhances information transmission from naturalistic stimuli in the vestibular system.