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Empirical mode decomposition of local field potential data from optogenetic experiments
Sorinel A Oprisan1, Xandre Clementsmith2, Tamas Tompa3,4
1Department of Physics and Astronomy, College of Charleston, Charleston, SC, United States.
Frontiers in Computational Neuroscience
|July 21, 2023
Summary
Cocaine use alters neural activity patterns in mice, affecting the lifespan and size of brain activity avalanches. This study used optogenetics and Empirical Mode Decomposition to analyze local field potentials in the medial prefrontal cortex.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Optogenetics
- Computational Neuroscience
Background:
- Local field potentials (LFPs) in the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) are crucial for cognitive functions.
- Understanding how substances like cocaine affect neural network dynamics is vital.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the impact of cocaine administration and parvalbumin interneuron stimulation on mPFC LFPs.
- To analyze neural activity dynamics using advanced signal processing techniques.
Main Methods:
- In vivo electrophysiological recordings of LFPs in mice using optogenetics.
- Empirical Mode Decomposition (EMD) to analyze non-stationary and nonlinear LFP signals.
- Decomposition into seven orthogonal Intrinsic Mode Functions (IMFs) to capture brain activity frequencies.
Main Results:
- EMD successfully decomposed LFP signals, with high Index of Energy Conservation (IEC) and low Index of Orthogonality (IO).
- Brain activity followed a power law distribution with a scaling exponent of ~1.4.
- Cocaine administration resulted in a slightly smaller scaling exponent compared to controls.
Conclusions:
- Neural activity under cocaine exhibits altered avalanche dynamics, characterized by longer life spans and larger sizes.
- EMD is an effective method for analyzing complex neural signals.
- Findings provide insights into cocaine's effects on mPFC network function.
