Impact of noise on retinal coding of visual signals

Christopher L. Passaglia*, John B. Troy

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

14 Scopus citations

Abstract

Neural noise introduces uncertainty about the signals encoded in neural spike trains. Because of the uncertainty neurons can reliably transmit a limited amount of information. This amount is difficult to quantify for neurons that combine signals and noise in a complex manner, as many trials would be needed to estimate the joint probability distribution of stimulus and neural response accurately. The task is experimentally tractable, however, for neurons that combine signals with additive Gaussian noise. For such neurons, the joint probability distribution is well defined and information transmission rates can be computed from estimates of signal-to-noise ratio. Here we use power spectral analysis to specify the contributions of signal and noise to retinal coding of visual information. We show that in the spike trains of cat ganglion cells noise power is minimal and constant at temporal frequencies from 0.3 to 20 Hz and that it increases at higher frequencies to a plateau level that generally depends on stimulus contrast. We also show that trial-to-trial fluctuations in noise amplitude at different frequencies are uncorrelated and normally distributed. Although the contrast dependence indicates that noise at high temporal frequencies contributes nonlinearly to ganglion cell spike trains, cells in the primary visual cortex are not known to respond to stimulus modulations >20 Hz. Hence, noise in the retinal output would appear additive, white, and Gaussian from their perspective. This greatly simplifies analysis of information transmission from the eye to the primary visual cortex and perhaps other regions of the brain.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)1023-1033
Number of pages11
JournalJournal of neurophysiology
Volume92
Issue number2
DOIs
StatePublished - Aug 2004

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • General Neuroscience
  • Physiology

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Impact of noise on retinal coding of visual signals'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this