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

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Bernhard Englitz
• Subject Area: Cognitive, Systems and Behavioural Neurobiology
• Term: from 2009 to 2011
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 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 Programme: Research Fellowships
• International Connection: USA
• Host: Dr. Shihab Shamma