Single-Trial Decoding of Bistable Perception Based on Sparse Nonnegative Tensor Decomposition

Zhisong Wang,Alexander Maier,Nikos K Logothetis,Hualou Liang

doi:10.1155/2008/642387

Abstract

The study of the neuronal correlates of the spontaneous alternation in perception elicited by bistable visual stimuli is promising for understanding the mechanism of neural information processing and the neural basis of visual perception and perceptual decision-making. In this paper, we develop a sparse nonnegative tensor factorization-(NTF)-based method to extract features from the local field potential (LFP), collected from the middle temporal (MT) visual cortex in a macaque monkey, for decoding its bistable structure-from-motion (SFM) perception. We apply the feature extraction approach to the multichannel time-frequency representation of the intracortical LFP data. The advantages of the sparse NTF-based feature extraction approach lies in its capability to yield components common across the space, time, and frequency domains yet discriminative across different conditions without prior knowledge of the discriminating frequency bands and temporal windows for a specific subject. We employ the support vector machines (SVMs) classifier based on the features of the NTF components for single-trial decoding the reported perception. Our results suggest that although other bands also have certain discriminability, the gamma band feature carries the most discriminative information for bistable perception, and that imposing the sparseness constraints on the nonnegative tensor factorization improves extraction of this feature.

Highlights

The question of cortex is of central importance to many issues in cognitive neuroscience
We apply the feature extraction approach to the multichannel timefrequency representation of intracortical local field potential (LFP) data collected from the middle temporal area (MT) visual area in a macaque monkey performing a SFM task, aiming to identify components common across the space, time, and frequency domains and at the same time discriminative across different conditions
Our results suggest that NTF is useful for LFP feature extraction and that other bands have certain discriminability, the gamma band feature carries the most discriminative information for bistable perception, and that imposing the sparseness constraints on the nonnegative tensor factorization improves extraction of this feature

Summary

Introduction

The question of cortex is of central importance to many issues in cognitive neuroscience To answer this question, one important experimental paradigm is to dissociate percepts from the visual inputs using bistable stimuli. Spiking activity has been extensively studied in brain research to determine the relationship between perceptual reports during ambiguous visual stimulation in the middle temporal area (MT) of macaque monkeys [2, 3]. LFP is thought to largely arise from the dendritic activity of local populations of neurons and is dominated by the excitatory synaptic inputs to a cortical area as well as intra-areal local processing. The investigation of the correlations between perceptual reports and LFP oscillations during physically identical but perceptually ambiguous conditions may shed new lights on the mechanism of neural information processing and the neural basis of visual perception and perceptual decisionmaking

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Conclusion