Abstract
Phase-locked spikes in various types of neurons encode temporal information. To quantify the degree of phase-locking, the metric called vector strength (VS) has been most widely used. Since VS is derived from spike timing information, error in measurement of spike occurrence should result in errors in VS calculation. In electrophysiological experiments, the timing of an action potential is detected with finite temporal precision, which is determined by the sampling frequency. In order to evaluate the effects of the sampling frequency on the measurement of VS, we derive theoretical upper and lower bounds of VS from spikes collected with finite sampling rates. We next estimate errors in VS assuming random sampling effects, and show that our theoretical calculation agrees with data from electrophysiological recordings in vivo. Our results provide a practical guide for choosing the appropriate sampling frequency in measuring VS.
Highlights
Information coding via synchronized neural activity is a common feature in the nervous system
In vivo recordings of auditory brainstem neurons Data from auditory brainstem neurons in barn owls, chicks and American alligators were used to assess the effect of sampling on the calculation of vector strength (VS).Animal husbandry and experimental protocols were approved by the Animal Care and Use Committee of the University of Maryland, the Regierung von Oberbayern (Germany), the University of Sydney Animal Ethics Committee, and/or the Marine Biological Laboratory (Woods Hole, MA, USA)
Results we evaluate the effect of temporal sampling error on VS calculation by deriving the lower and upper bounds for VS, examining expected error in VS, and comparing our theoretical calculation with physiologically recorded data in vivo
Summary
Information coding via synchronized neural activity is a common feature in the nervous system. We derive theoretical upper and lower bounds for errors in VS calculated from spikes collected with finite sampling rates.
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