Revealing unexpected complex encoding but simple decoding mechanisms in motor cortex via separating behaviorally relevant neural signals.

ABSTRACT: In motor cortex, behaviorally relevant neural responses are entangled with irrelevant signals, which complicates the study of encoding and decoding mechanisms. It remains unclear whether behaviorally irrelevant signals could conceal some critical truth. One solution is to accurately separate behaviorally relevant and irrelevant signals at both single-neuron and single-trial levels, but this approach remains elusive due to the unknown ground truth of behaviorally relevant signals. Therefore, we propose a framework to define, extract, and validate behaviorally relevant signals. Analyzing separated signals in three monkeys performing different reaching tasks, we found neural responses previously considered to contain little information actually encode rich behavioral information in complex no

SUBMITTER: Li Y 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11315449 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature