Single Trial Reconstruction of Acoustic Stimuli from Multielectrode Cortical Recordings of Awake Ferrets

• Antragsteller: Professor Dr. Bernhard Englitz
• Fachliche Zuordnung: Kognitive, systemische und Verhaltensneurobiologie
• Förderung: Förderung von 2009 bis 2011
• Projektkennung: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Projektnummer 158108475

Sensoryose illusions demonstrate how strongly our perception of the world can be biased by the structure of the brain. While humans can report their percept, we have to rely on other venues in the case of animal experiments. In this project we aim to reconstruct the spectrograms of acoustic stimuli based on multielectrode recordings from a neuronal population in the auditory cortex of awake ferrets. Mimicking the brain’s real-time task, we will develop reconstruction techniques that operate on single trials and respect temporal causality. To account for the possible role of correlations between neurons, we will adapt the multilinear modeling framework for stimulus reconstruction, providing a limited range of second order interactions. Next, we want to apply these methods to estimate the animals percept of an ambiguous stimulus (e.g. streaming type) in a behavioral setting, allowing to verify the reconstructions. Generally, the ability to interpret the neuronal activity will be key for a range of prosthetic applications. This project will be hosted by Prof. Shamma (Univ. of Maryland), wh group has substantial experience in combining computational analysis with behavioral neurophysiology.

• DFG-Verfahren: Forschungsstipendien
• Internationaler Bezug: USA
• Gastgeber: Dr. Shihab Shamma